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When this occurred I also experienced...

Welcome to Our Wave.

This is a space where survivors of trauma and abuse share their stories alongside supportive allies. These stories remind us that hope exists even in dark times. You are never alone in your experience. Healing is possible for everyone.

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Story
From a survivor
🇬🇧

Abused by Gynecologist

In my survival story, "Just Words, Dirty Words", I shared so much and I brushed over an experience with a male gynecologist. It was a much bigger deal that I let on because it had triggered my previous abuse as an adolescent on my first job. I wonted other girls and women to understand what is not okay for a gynecologist to do. It was not until after it happened that I realized the full impact. I realized I had let myself be victimized again without trying to stop it. I felt self-loathing and anxiety. I write this letter to that opportunistic predator. You broke your oath. You betrayed the trust. You are terrible! I have done research on what a breast and pelvic exam is supposed be like and understand you used the framework to sexually assault me. I was late for the appointment to get birth control at the university clinic when I had just moved for college. You let me in even though you had no nurse chaperon, it seemed that you might have sent them home after putting me in the room. You are a man and that is against policy. We shared our first eye contact and I ignored your lust and first glance flirtation. You saw I was vulnerable and needed something from you. You told me as a new patient you have to do a full first visit exam. Now I believe you may have lied. I nodded and put down my guard. When you returned I was undressed wearing a paper smock for a false sense of security. I was self conscious even though I had impeccable hygiene and grooming but worried I was not fresh enough so late in the day because you were a man and you made it sexual. You examined my breasts with no gloves. I said nothing. I knew you were massaging them for you pleasure. You went on for five minutes like that. I think five whole minutes while you kept talking. When my boss used to molest me just seconds was plenty to make me feel sick and used. He would sit on my torso, compressing my ribs to the point I could not take a deep breath and have sex with my breasts and he usually took less time than you. do remember you used the words “wonderful” and “amazing” when commenting on by breast health. We could both smell the musk from down below from stimulating me like that. I was embarrassed. You should have been the one ashamed! You mentioned the textures and gave some instructional anatomy to pretend it might be official. You asked random questions and you shared personal stories like it was a date. All the while you were groping my tits like a pervert. Both hands at the same time! I tried to cover for you by pretending like this was not insane and not a sexual assault. You were twice my age and your mustache was ridiculous. You finally moved on to the pelvic exam. You said the words, “Very nice” when you lifted up the paper drape to help my feet into the stirrups. That is not appropriate when viewing a patient’s vagina for the first time. You explained every step from “I’m going to touch your thighs now” to “take a deep breath as I insert the speculum”. That part was quick but then you explained the manual exam that you did for too long. You inserted two fingers to check for cervical motion tenderness but rubbed my clitoris with your lubricated thumb as you did so. That was wrong! You explained that you were going to move your other hand to check for tenderness of my ovaries to check for infection but kept working your other hand on my clit and inside me. You put what felt like three fingers in me! You were sexually assaulting me again. Breaching my trust. Ignoring you oath. As a last indignity you felt for masses in the space between my vagina and rectum. You left your thumb in my vagina while you put a finger in my anus and moved them both back and in and out explaining you thought you felt something for a second but it resolved on massage, meaning it was nothing to worry about. You raped me! That was rape! I looked it up and what you were doing is a real part of an exam but no gynecologist had done that before then or ever since! Instead of leaving the room while I dressed you stayed and helped by holding out my clothes! Totally inappropriate! You should not have a medical license! Sure I let you, and I cooperated, and even tried to endure it and put on a pleasant face. I was a different person then and you just continued my cycle of being abused by men. But the anus part was where I felt true terror and wanted to get out. You gave me a business card with your name on it and told me to call and ask when you were working to schedule next visit. Then you only wrote me for 1 refill on 30 day birth control! Like I would even come back to be assaulted again. You smug abuser of power and trust! I left with you thinking I enjoyed that and would see you again!!! You make me want to scream and pound on things! It was delayed, but my abuse anxiety was triggered that night, and days after. I will never see a male gynecologist again. Your lust and greed is not better than that of a rapist. You broke my trust in the medical system and I still get anxiety at any doctor visit. Just because a girl’s reaction to abuse is not instant, because of some survival mechanism, does not make it any less painful. Sometimes even more, because we feel guilty for not being strong and assertive. You were in a position of authority and abused it so badly. You should be ashamed, doctor! You should be in prison!

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Major Sexual Harassment

    It started as sexual harassment. And I let it happen. Do not let it happen to you! I was a college intern working on my supply-chain management major. In business school you know you don’t just get a degree and POOF! A job is magically waiting for you. Unless you already have connections. I was a single woman on financial aid and had squat for family connections. I needed to make some connections while still in school that I could use to climb the ladder. It is a very competitive world. A time when we don’t care so much where we work as long as it has prospects of advancement and making money. I was interning at the corporate offices for a rental car company. I got my first choice for a class in which we had to intern at a real company. My group of four was in their logistics offices and we had no clear job at the time but my school had sent students for a while so we had a contact person and some loose idea of a project that my group of four had to put together and execute for our grade. Well that was kind of of dud and I went along with the bad idea of planning more efficient distribution routes for their cars entering the fleet. It was naive because the company had real pros who designed the system. But, because of my feminine wiles, I got invited to come in and help in my free time by a top manager. Just me. I jumped at the opportunity and on my available days I showed up early in the morning and tried to be like part of the team. It was a very masculine environment. I tried to hang in spite of the pretenses for my special treatment. “You’re not one of those feminist types who go crying to HR if a man gives you a compliment or a pat on the backside, are you?” The man who first invited me had asked. We’ll call him XX. I assured him I was not, anticipating his expected answer. “Work hard, play hard,” was something I said in my denial of values he was obviously opposed to. So the couple times XX introduced me as his mistress I went along with the joke. Another stupid mistake. As an example of my environment, after a male Y in the department first showed me how to use part of a program that calculates stock outages, he had me sit and try it and gave me a massage I did not ask for early in the morning. Well XX came up and made a joke about Y getting his hands of his girl. They had some bro moment where the male Y asked him if he was serious, saying something about XX’s wife, to which XX backed down and said something like “It’s just a joke. I’d love to in my fantasies, but she’s company property, brother.” Company property??! I was sitting right there! I tensed up but tried to pretend I was so absorbed in the computer training as XX left and male Y went back to massaging me, but this time more boldly. He got down my lower back and upper buttock then went down the arms to my thighs, stopping me from doing any work as he blatantly brushed his forearms and hands against my chest. I felt so weak and almost paralyzed by the time I forced myself to stand up to go use the restroom, stopping it. I could have just done that at the beginning but did not. Later hat same day, XX had me go to lunch with him and have a beer at a bar and grill with a pool table. I was 20 but they did not ask for my ID because I was with XX. I hardly ever played pool and while we waited for our food he “showed” me how to play. He made fun of the cliché on movies and television where a man has a woman bend over the pool table to shoot just so he can push his crotch against her backside in a suggestive manger and lean over her with his arms on each side of her to show her how to slide the stick. But while he joked about it he actually did those things to me! That was a good day for my two main molesters and an awful day for me. XX hugged me as we stood up giggling and apparently his hands now had a license to molest my body whenever he wanted. I got numb to it in some ways, but emotionally more on edge. My butt was grabbed or spanked playfully in the department, even by male Y. A few other men were very flirtatious. My shoulders were rubbed, hugs on even minor greetings with XX and finally I was supposed to get used to little pecks on the lips too. I felt like I was in a constant state of mental anguish and defensiveness. My body could be attacked anytime. But I did not defend myself! I would say clearly to XX and some others that I wanted to be respected and considered one of the guys and have a job there when I graduated and they affirmed it. Both main abusers encouraged me, but still sexually harassed me. With my moronic blessing! The semester ended and I kept going in daily during summer break. It was my only lifeline to a possible job after I graduated in a year. I was so groomed that it was not a big leap at all when XX pressured me to give him head in his office. I refused with a smile and head shake and he came back with some rationalization about how I owed him and he really needed it just then. He would not take no for an answer. The first time I lowered myself to kneeling before his desk and took him in my mouth my hands were shaking and I teared up and had to sniffle snot back up. I was the one who was embarrassed! It was like an out of body experience and my mouth dried up to where I had to ask him to drink some of his energy drink. Internally there was a huge change immediately. I was gutted of all pride and self-worth. I was like a zombie. Hardly eating. Lots of coffee. Showing up and doing the reports that had become my responsibility and mechanically giving XX his daily BJ in the afternoon in his small stale office with a small window. I started to have migraines during that summer. I drove home for 4th of July and got so inebriated I ended up sleeping with my much older sister’s ex-husband in the back of his truck. That was a terrible wake up call. I knew I couldn’t pretend much longer without a breakdown so I put my two week in at the rental car place where I was working for free. To secure my future I made sure to keep it all friendly and “you know I’ll be back working here next year”. The idea of all the time and humiliation I had put in being lost to nothing was a major fear. I put myself through two last weeks of it. I had quickie sex with XX twice on and over his desk. I gave into extreme pressure and gave male Y a BJ too when he explicitly made it about a letter of recommendation. He knew about me doing it for XX. He did not even have his own office and we had to use the stairwell. During my final year of school I became aware that I was too traumatized to ever go back there anyway. The extent to which I had been used and abused became obvious to me, where before it had not. As if I had been living in a denial haze. It was a painful time. I was a bit reckless. I got a C in the high level economics elective I took. I said yes to several dates to avoid being alone and either slept with them or freaked out in anger at them. Seeing that I needed the car rental faux-internship on my resume I did email both abusers for letters of recommendation and got a good one from Male Y, but a very impersonal, generic one from XX. I was so dejected and angry. Finally, I told my sister, the one who confronted me about her ex-husband. I TOLD HER EVERYTHING AND THAT WAS MY FIRST STEP TO RECOVERY. To letting out the pain, screaming at myself in the mirror, punching the heavy bag at a boxing gym I joined, and to seeing my first psychologist and psychiatrist. The therapy helped more than the Celexa and antipsych. The support group helped even more. I met two friends for life who have my back in times of sorrow. I have to repeat that it is not my fault that I was abused, even though it kind of was. Don’t let it happen to you! They will take as much as they can from you. Plan your boundaries now and be assertive! Report harassment immediately. Doing so you are being a hero and protecting other women and yourself. If you have already been abused, GET OUT of the situation and talk to someone about it ASAP. There is nothing to be gained by letting the abuse continue! Talking to someone makes it real and lets you start the process of hating less and starting on the path to learning to love yourself again. You deserve real love.

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  • “Healing to me means that all these things that happened don’t have to define me.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇮🇪

    Autistic voice

    I used to think rape was what you'd see in movies. Jumped on by a stranger and violently assaulted. Turns out I was wrong. I have been raped on multiple occasions and didn't fully understand it until I got older and wiser and also found out that I'm autistic. This is what helped me to understand what had really happened. I learned and studied autism in girls and women and figured it out from there. I was vulnerable and impressionable and masked so much that I was a completely different person on the outside than who I really was on the inside. When I was younger and had no clue that I was being preyed upon due to my vulnerability and started to pretend as though I just liked sex and was willingly promiscuous. It was a lie I told myself and my friends so that I didn't have to face the fact I couldn't and didn't know how to say no and mean it. There is flight, fight and also freeze. So many times I was telling them no and when they didn't stop I just froze and realised that my voice was pointless and they weren't listening to me. It was easier to allow them to finish without fighting and having it be violent too. I didn't realise how badly the mental impact would be. One particular night I was out in a bar and a few of us went back to a house party. One guy was showing interest in me and I actually liked it. We kissed and had fun and then he led me to a bedeoom and I hesitated but ended up going in. When he started to undress me I held my dress and said no. I said it so many times and he started to get really rough and forceful and started saying things to me about leading him on and what did I think was going to happen and I just wanted it rough. I realised that no matter what I said, sex was going to happen so I had two options, fight and be both violently and sexually assaulted or just have the sex without any further resistance which would mean that I'd be only sexually assaulted without the extra violence. I chose the latter and for a long time I believed that I just had sex that night. I now realise that was absolutely rape. It's played with my mental health for over ten years and I'm ready to acknowledge what happened to me instead of being in denial.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    It Started with my Brother

    I was used by my brother who has grown up a lot but I still carry scars. My brother is four years older than me and when I was going from elementary school to Junior high, that summer, he made me think that girls in junior high need to know how to give oral to boys. First he did oral to me to show me it was not a big deal. I thought it was a huge deal. But I did it and he got me trained and had me keep it a secret, except from by best friend. He had his friend over when I had a sleepover one night and had her do it to his friend. Then they would have us do contests where they wear blindfolds. At least I was not alone then. It changed me even though seventh grade itself had nothing to do with anything like that. It was a lie to get pleasure from me. My brother still had me doing it at home. And sometimes he would do it to me and I did climax. So I had this weird secret sex life and felt really messed up about it. Then in eight grade I had my first real boyfriend. My parents are so strict, even though they both worked and left me alone with my brother. To go to the movies with my boyfriend they made sure it was with a group and took me there and waited outside the theater. Well one time when we went to see Snow White and the Huntsman my same BFF and me went through with our plan to go down on our guys in the last row of the theater and we did it. It was only a month later I started having sex with him which never would have happened if not for what my brother had done. We snuck out from her place during a sleepover and met the boys outside and went to the nearby park and did it in the grass. That was my virginity. The really bad event, where my life got knocked off the tracks, is when we tried it from my house, sneaking out the window and going just out farther into my big back yard that opened into nothing but the side of a big hill and my dad caught us. It was awful. The world ended. I was treated like a huge betrayer and almost all my privileges were revoked and essentially I was grounded without any end date. And still by brother would make me do the oral. I was broken hearted because I was not allowed to have my boyfriend to the point my parents made me go to the school and talk to the principal and vice principal and they made sure I would not have any chance to ever see him alone. And my brother kept creeping in at night sometimes or when we were left alone expecting me to do what he had trained me to be used to. The next really bad part was two months into my new restricted life. My brother started doing his oral on me one afternoon after school and decided to take it farther and got up and started kissing me and had sex with me. I was in the moment and did not do anything to stop him and even participated. No condom. It was an afternoon when my parents were away and so we did not have to keep quiet or worry and he did it so much longer than my few times with my boyfriend, because he was older and knew more from being with other girls that I got sore for my first time and got a urine infection. I did not eat my dinner that night and pretended to be sick and cried myself to sleep. My brother really wanted to do it again, telling me it was the best sex he ever had, but I refused and one thing I could say for him back then was at least he was not a rapist. Even though he pressured me he never tried to force himself inside me. Four months after I had lost my incest virginity the school year ended and he graduated. I went to high school and he moved out to live in college dorms 120 miles from our home town. Public school was over for me, as was planned as soon as my dad caught me on the hill. I went to an all girl’s Catholic high school. My dad had to drive me a half hour every morning and my mom picked me up from my whole first year. Then they got me a car so I could drive myself but the mileage and my times were closely monitored. I did not have an intercourse throughout high school but seven times total I did oral on my brother during summer and winter breaks when we were both at home. That was the end of incest in my life. I went to college in Atlanta but not the same one as my brother. I rebelled against my parents and even though they tried to keep control, as a legal adult I did not let them. Turmoil and sadness lasted months until they finally got it. I separated from them financial and worked and took out student loans. I was very promiscuous in college. I drank, partied and used drugs recreationally and had several guys I was seeing on and off for mostly sex. That was my life and I thought I enjoyed it at the time. I became stronger and more assertive and when my brother first hinted during a Thanksgiving meeting at our relative’s house that we go for a drive I told him I never wanted to touch him again in such a powerful way that he knew I was off limits and even seemed like the scared one in our relationship. I didn’t enroll in classes for two nonconsecutive semester just because my party life was so much more fun. I traveled on and off. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with men, usually older, who invited me to exotic places. The Maldives, Portugal, The Virgin Islands. I let my married boss use me for a weekend in Key West. I had an affair with my Spanish teacher, who only took me as far as Panama City, Florida. So many risky one night stands. My identity was that I was not looking for anything permanent, a child of the universe. While I was used as a plaything so many times and believed I liked the game. I would tell them things about wanting to make their dick happy and stuff that would inflate their ego. I’m sure there are so many text messages out there that they saved about the size of their D fitting in my little P, about being a little girl wanting them to teach me to be woman and other depraved fantasies I thought they wanted to hear. Obviously directly related to what my brother did to me. I am almost positive I avoided being raped more than once by going with the flow when I did not expect to or probably want to. It may be good that some of them I probably don’t remember. Once was at one of the few fraternity parties I ever went to. It was three guys, not my usual style. Once was with my roommate's father who was visiting her at our rented house and found his way to my bed in the early morning. One of the more extreme traumatic events was with a police officer who pulled me over for driving when I had been drinking but was under the legal limit on his breathalyzer. He followed me home, like a mile away, “for my safety” and even followed me inside. I was in an apartment then and I thought my roomate was home and told him so. But when she wasn’t there he said I lied to a police officer and he had to do a more thorough search if I wanted to avoid being arrested. He was not attractive or nice. He had a gun thought he never took it out. You can guess what happened. I finally shed that wild life during my second to last semester when I saw the end of college coming. My G.P.A was 3.3. and my major was philosophy and it dawned on me that the future was not bright in terms of what I would do or how I would pay back my loans. I buckled down and decided to change. I had an offer to strip and ‘make a lot of money’ but thankfully not only did never considered myself like that, but when I went with a friend for her interview and they tried to recruit me they were so sleazy we both ran out of there disgusted. I reevaluated my whole life. I considered ending it, but some survival mechanism did not allow it. I did not want to be the person I had been for a few years. I looked ahead and saw it was not sustainable as I aged and had no real love or stability. I quit serving when I got an offer to work in a legal office. I slept with the manager who hired me as a receptionist but it was a drop in the bucket of things to be shameful of. He was the last one like that. I got all A’s and graduated cum laude. I got promoted in the firm mostly by title but used it to spring away and take a lower paying job in a nonprofit law firm where I had not slept with anyone. There I did sleep with a lawyer but I am married to him still and my life is back together. I love him and he loves me. He does not know the extent of my sluttiness in college or about my brother and I doubt he ever will. That darkness is fading and it is not part of my life now. It is not who I am. As for my brother, he has a family now and we are on good terms. We did talk about it once while I was studying like crazy my senior year, although it was not a big deep talk. I did mention that he used me, he apologized, we hugged, and that was it. Not the cathartic confrontation some might expect. My catharsis is my husband, and my life now that I am grateful for. We adopted two toddler brothers and I am their mom. Maybe we’ll have one of our own. Maybe we’ll adopt again. I was used and introduced to sex too young and early and it strained my relationship with my parents for a long time and I’ll never get that back. It derailed my life. I was set adrift for a while but God or the universe or random luck finally put me in a good place. Everything that happened led me what I have now. I can’t say I never contemplated suicide in darker times. But like in the move Cast Away, if I may quote, “I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am.” Thousands of hours spent studying philosophy and I quote a movie that was not even based on a book. But it’s perfect.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • “We believe you. Your stories matter.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Awakening my mind to peace

    Starting off, I want to share that healing is not the same for everybody. We all take different paths, bumps or curves in the road, or heal directly, without interference. Me personally, it took about 2-4 years until I realized I had been sexually assaulted. When I first learned the meaning, I presumed it "didn't count", and that it wasn't what I thought due to the manner of which the act was committed. I spoke with a close friend online, and he helped me to understand that it in fact was, sexual assault. I was about 13-14 at this time, I'd never been taught the importance or gruesome facts of sexual assault. I resented many people, accordingly my parents for not informing me, or preparing me. I blamed many others including myself. Although, it never felt as if the weight was taken off of my chest, off of my head, or my body. At 15, I sought help via the suicide hotline. I felt like there was nothing left for me, and the shame I felt, my lack of a voice to speak out. I was provided appropriate resources, indulged myself in meditation, which did have a positive effect, yet wasn't enough. Nobody in my life knew of what happened, except for a mystery woman on the other end of the hotline. I remembered then the ease I felt speaking to that one woman whom I hadn't even known, and realized the ease I could feel if I told people I DID know. I began to speak to friends, and anyone I trusted although never my parents, and still have not. Now, I'm older although there are struggles still with my nightmares, some guilt, I have found peace. I've found strength, courage, a feather now on my chest replacing the 40 pound anchor sunk into it, my heart and mind has healed. I've found love for others and myself. In the time I've spent healing from self harm, suicidal tendencies, self isolation, and guilt, I've learned one important factor, and that is I am not, alone. Nobody is alone in their struggles and there is something out there or somebody at all times to positively rebuild us and guide us to peace. I hope for anybody and everybody struggling to find peace, finds that peace, and can one day replace the anchor with the same feather.

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  • Community Message
    🇺🇸

    PTSD developed in middle school.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    I am not just a tool

    All the memories that my mind seems to easily access day after day, are so much more difficult to verbalize. I have never shared my story, but thought this may help and maybe help others too. It's seems so selfish sharing it so I am glad this is anonymous so I don't carry guilt or worry of people's opinions. Due to my past, I have had a hard time separating myself from being the sexual tool and being normal. My parents separated when I was 3. My mom used heroine and married an abusive man shortly after. There's was extreme physical abuse in the home. (he beat us, locked us up, beat a dog to death infront of us, even shot my mom in the leg and made us care for it) When they ran short of money for their drugs, they would offer their friends to sexually assaulting me. I was 4 to 5 years old. They also encouraged my younger brother and I to act things out with each other. He would have to pee on me or I would have to play with his privates. I was once taken to a party at a house. It was a mansion with an elevator that I thought was so neat. I was taken up to a room and different men were allowed to touch me. Only one man actually had intercourse that day. I still have nightmares about him. All if this was soon found out and I was sent to live with my dad. He was an alcoholic so we stayed at my grandma's often. My brother, my younger cousin, and I played "doctor" all the time. It was all we knew. One Christmas when I was 8, I was told to go get my cousins. They were 16 and 18 and their friend. When I knocked on the door they told me to come in. They raped me in every way possible. No one even noticed I was gone. I went to the bathroom after and I was bleeding. I thought I was going to die that day. I thought I would bleed to death. That night my 16 year old cousin apologized and promised to keep me safe. For 3 years every time I was at my grandma's, I would sleep with him and he would rape me but gently. He told me I would be his wife. He told me he loved me and would always keep me safe. Whem he turned 21, he got another girl pregnant. He told me he had to marry her. Then he went home and shot himself in the head. I felt heartbroken. I slit my wrist to end the pain, but failed. My mom came back into my life with a new husband. He started wanting me to try in clothes for him. Then he started coming into my room and night and pleasing himself over me while touching me. I told my mom and she said no, he was abusing only her. She kicked him out. He hung himself shortly after. I had started acting out. I was giving 12th graders hard jobs in 7th grade on the bus. I thought my job was to please men. I was 15 before I realized that I was wrong. This realization came from people at school starting to call me a hoe and making fun of me. I changed my behaviors with lots of work. I had to watch other adults to figure out what normal was. People would ask when I lost my virginity and I didn't know what to tell them. I struggled mostly in relationships because I put all my value as a wife as how I could perform in bed. I carried so much guilt for the people I abused as a young child when I didn't know any better. Especially my younger cousin. I was only 5 or 6, but he was 3 or 4. He now is sitting in prison for drugs for a long long time. I wonder if what I did changed him like it changed me. I hold so much guilt for that. My brother is a drug addict and I wonder if what we did had a play in that. I feel guilt, like I was a year older and should have been protecting him. As an adult I can protect myself more. My dad did grab my butt and tell me I was sexy about 10 years ago, but I dont see him any more. My mom starvation from doing drugs 5 years ago. It is just me and I think about the toll it all has had on me. I feel different than everyone else. I feel damaged. I disassociate often. I have to ground myself. I domt trust people. I see the bad people can do, even people that seem normal. I grow every day though. I try to be the woman and mother I needed. I push myself to be better every day. I now have a great husband. Although I am unable to feel love, he still loves me daily. I have the most amazing kids. They do good in school and are great little people. I am proud of how far I have came. I still hold so much guilt, but every day is a new one.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • “You are the author of your own story. Your story is yours and yours alone despite your experiences.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    #400

    i cant really remember when it all "started" i was 6 or 7 i believe it lasted until i was 8 but he was still doing creepy shit until i was 9 or 10 one night he asked me what sex was im not sure what i said but i think i kinda knew what it was but didnt really know he asked to have sex i didnt know what to do i think i "contented" this time i was anxious the entire time i wanted him to stop i would tell him to quit and that i hear someone and he wouldnt stop after that it continued i dont remember the order or anything it happened i dont remember it really but he would use code words such as "wanna watch funny mine craft videos" i would try to convince him to watch ACTUAL funny minecraft videos but he wanted to watch porn or "have sex" i never would say yes when he would as for sex right away it usually was him begging me or manipulating or sometimes forcing himself on to me. he would say "you never wanna do what i wanna do", mock me, ask over and over again, or if i was sitting infront of him he would stick his private into the back of my pants. i remember oncs i kept saying stop and no when i was playing minecraft on his xbox and he kept sticking his yknow down my pants. he raped me one time. he usually just sexually assualted me (rubbed my private, grabbed boobs, did the whole sticking his private down my pants thing) but this time he begged and said since he touched my private (i didnt want him too) that i had to do stuff to him i told him no but he said i had to and its not fair shit like that yknow. he made me give him head basically. after that i put an "end" to it by threatening to tell if he asks me again. he acted all depressed. i felt guilty like i was doing something wrong. that wasnt the only reason why i felt so guilty. my dad passed away around that time and i thought he was watchkng over and hated me for what my cousin was doing for me because i thought i was "having sex" when i was pretty much sa the entire time. he still managed to do creepy things to me after. like holding me down and pressing his private aganist mine saying its "a game", writing this is making me grossed out i dont wanna think about this anymore i just need someone to actually listen to my story even though i dont havr all the details or good memory of what happened to me.

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    No One Believed Me

    I was 14. We were at sleep away church summer camp. Me and one of my friends had been giving people tattoos. He asked for one, of course. Wanted some lyrics on his hand that were far too inappropriate for a church camp. He put his hand on my thigh to give me 'better access to his hand'. Conversation between the three of us got dirty, quick. I hate to say that i participated in it, but I did. I have a tendency to get greedy about male attention, stemming from little to no attention from my deadbeat father. Fast forward a little bit, about an hour later. Me, a few of my friends, and him. We made our way from the chapel to the lodge for dinner. He waits till we're in the far corner of the line to grope me roughly, whispering horrible, degrading things into my ear. Young, starstruck, naïve me thought he loved me so much that he would tell me those things. It was only after he tried to force himself down my throat that I realized how terrible it was. I didn't want my innocence to be taken by an older teen who i had just met, much less in a chapel. When i told the counselors, they seemed like they believed me. But his father was a major donator. My friends didn't believe me because he was 'attractive'. When i told my mother, she didn't believe me. "You probably led him on, so he thought it was fine." No. If 'Yes' was never explicitly said, then it's not consent. Since then, I've struggled. I've questioned my religion. But then I thought, why am i giving this horrible boy any extra thought? And why does everyone I love believe his word over mine? Maybe because they never really loved me. Maybe because it was easier to pretend it never happened. But a real supporter would take the scared child's word before considering the almost adult male who had a history of sexual disturbances.

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  • “These moments in time, my brokenness, has been transformed into a mission. My voice used to help others. My experiences making an impact. I now choose to see power, strength, and even beauty in my story.”

    Story
    From a survivor
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    Growing up verbally and emotionally abused can be debilitating.

    Most of the abuse and neglect I grew up with was verbal abuse and emotional neglect. It was a lot of being yelled at by a parent. A lot of violence on objects in our presence - fists pounding on the dinner table, milk pitchers getting thrown off the table while we were all seated, banished to my room when I was angry and upset, a telephone getting violently torn from the wall while a sister and I stood inches away. The phone incident occurred at night. My memory is my sister and I were in bed. We were called out of our bedroom and yelled at for going to bed without doing the dishes. We were told we were lucky because our parent was so mad at us for not doing the dishes that they wanted to hit us but they didn’t hit us, instead they violently tore the phone out of the wall in front of us. I didn’t feel lucky. I was very upset, angry and scared and walked out of the house at night in my nightgown crying. I was then told I was overreacting and crying in order to get attention and sympathy. Another night as a younger child, I was having nightmares and crying. I was really scared and upset and couldn’t sleep. A parent came to my room and slapped me repeatedly every few seconds on my cheek. As they slapped me, they told me I would continue to get slapped until I stopped crying. I was slapped on the face every few seconds until my crying stopped. I am learning that as a result of the verbal abuse and emotional neglect I grew up with, I have thought and acted as though I was to blame for how I was treated as a child. I have lived a life plagued with guilt and self-reproach. My brain interpreted how I was treated as how I deserved to be treated and that I, not my parents, were at fault. If I hadn’t been scared and crying, I wouldn’t have gotten slapped. If I had done the dishes, the phone wouldn’t have been torn out of the wall in front of me. It’s pretty messed up thinking but not uncommon in people who were treated the way I was as a child. I am working hard to unlearn that way of thinking. The effects of the abuse and neglect endure to the present day. I have come to understand that a lot of my current overwhelming emotions like rage, anger, depression and passive suicide ideation are throwbacks to my childhood when no one helped me contain, process and move through big, strong, volatile feelings. As a result, I have had bouts of profound and debilitating depression. I have been passively suicidal, wishing I was dead or at least in a hospital. All my siblings have suffered. I have a sister who has been hospitalized over fifty times for mental health issues and is also on disability for those issues. I have pretty constant low grade anxiety that has been around so long I wasn't aware of it until recently, such a part of my being it is. I am hyper-vigilant and routinely react to present day situations in ways that don't match the present day issue. Something minor can happen and instead of being slightly bothered by it and quickly returning to calm, my nervous system interprets it as an unsafe situation, I unconsciously go on high alert and have an overblown reaction. I also frequently interpret a benign situation as dangerous. For example, I hear a certain tone in someone's voice and suddenly I think I'm about to get yelled at, hit, or have something thrown at me when someone is merely telling me I dropped a dollar bill on the floor. Learning about complex ptsd (cptsd) has been extremely helpful as has Internal Family Systems (IFS) and my therapy which is in part traditional therapy but also trauma informed with a lot of body based, bottom up (as opposed to brain based, head down) concepts and work. I was 56 when I realized I am dealing with cptsd and now feel, in many ways, like a new person. It’s never too late!

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    To open the door.

    Please understand that I am not good at English. There is a room deep inside now. In the past, when I thought of it, there was a door wrapped around a complex lock, but now it has become a room with very small lights. At that time, I was excited and tried to see the next gallery before my family. It was the most remote place in the exhibition hall and it was a little dark. Suddenly, something caught me from behind. My mouth was blocked and I couldn't say anything. What still doesn't come to mind is that I can't remember where my hands were without covering my mouth. I just felt like squeezing my penis when I first revived my memory at the counseling center. Without knowing how long it took, it disappeared into the darkness when my family began to come here. From then on, I got myself. I talked to me for the first time. "What happened to me?" "Did he cast a spell on me?" My curse began then. Everything felt different. My close school friends and teachers felt scary, and everything that followed me was scary. He suffered from an unidentified abdominal pain and vomited. Less than half of my academic performance came out, and whenever I had time, I cut the walls of my room with a cutter knife. It is no exaggeration to say that my life has lived to be liberated from this curse since that day. I have visited countless hospitals and consulted numerous counselors. Last year, about 12 years ago, I remembered being dissociated for the first time. I wanted to punish it so much. And that fact has not changed even now. And now I want to achieve my dream of ending this curse and achieving it without running away from it. Thank you for having a place to talk about this. I want to overcome it with everyone who came here.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    It happened at work . .

    I was so shocked. Being a single parent my career and professionalism means everything - including basic financial survival. I work for a small male dominated company. Part of my compensation includes a house on the property. I offered one of the rooms as a temporary conference room - 5 years later I had a growing side business and communicated with the appropriate 30 day notice that at the end of the year I would like to take this space in my home back. That set the owner off. He is emotionally unbalanced but I had no idea he would isolate me - came into the office barking for everyone to leave, he wanted to talk to me. Then he cornered me and after what seemed like very rehearsed rantings he talked about he and his wife’s $10k hobbies and in the same breath leaned forward leering and said “I bet your afraid some man is going to lock you in your basement and rape your ass”. I was speechless, and breathless - thinking he is having knee replacement surgery - if he moved closer I could kick that knee . . When he was done ranting at me - he wanted a hug. I was so throughly disgusted - but afraid - so with tears down my face gave him a hug - I just wanted it to end, for him to leave . . I had my first panic attack as soon as he left, I had my next one the next day. A week later I had stroke level HBP - and made sure to document this with my physician. When I finally told someone, I had such a physical reaction I was admitted to the CCU - Cardiac Care Unit for a few days. While I have not had a similar encounter since, I do have pepper spray and a knife in 6 places in and around where I work and live.

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  • “I have learned to abound in the joy of the small things...and God, the kindness of people. Strangers, teachers, friends. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, but there is good in the world, and this gives me hope too.”

    Message of Hope
    From a survivor
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    We are not alone. I am here for you. We are together.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    My Story

    This girl who did this to me, everyone thought we were sisters we were so close but here’s my story… Throughout being 9-13 I was molested by my cousin who is a year younger than me I know it sounds weird but we knew from a young age that she had things wrong with her. Her mum is a drug addict who’s been in and out her life for as long as I can remember I grew up with her and we were always so close. I never saw anything wrong with what she was doing because she made it into games so I didn’t see that there was anything wrong with it. I also have mental issues but when I started to realise what she was doing was more than “games” I didn’t stay at my grandads for a while because we used to spend every weekend there together. But then the last 6 months of lockdown she had to come live with me and I had never told anyone what she had been doing to me but nothing happens threw out the 6 months because we didn’t have to share a bed thankfully I had a cabin bed which is like a bunk bed and she was in a mattress on the floor and one night I heard making weird noises and I looked over to see her masterbating but never said a word. Then afterwords she went to live with her sister which she still does now and my grandad told us he bought two beds so we didn’t have to share whenever we came over anymore and he got me a cabin bed so I was fine so I stayed there a couple times and nothing happened so I started trusting her again and then one night she made us make a den like we used to when she was. Younger I didn’t want to but she said “well I’m already having a bad day your just making it worse” so I just did make it then I woke up and she was raping me but I couldn’t move all I could do was cry but she didn’t notice then we she stopped all I could hear was her finishing herself off and then she kissed me on the top of my back which to this day makes me feel so dirty but then I could move I grabbed my shorts put them on grabbed my phone ran out side and called my dad and he came and got me and he asked her what she was doing and she just sat there saying she didn’t do anything to this day j haven’t spoke to her and she’s tried to get in touch with me multiple times. Also she told her sister that she doesn’t get why she doesnt talk to me anymore I hate her I hate her I could never tel my family the details and how long she actually did it for all they know about is that one night.

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  • You are wonderful, strong, and worthy. From one survivor to another.

    Taking ‘time for yourself’ does not always mean spending the day at the spa. Mental health may also mean it is ok to set boundaries, to recognize your emotions, to prioritize sleep, to find peace in being still. I hope you take time for yourself today, in the way you need it most.

    Story
    From a survivor
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    Life does get better.

    When I was 7, I started being sexually abused. This wasn’t by a family member, it was my grans second husband. It all stopped when I was 12, when we moved a few miles away and he didn’t visit as much. When I was 17, I was having therapy for other things, it eventually came out then. They helped me decide how I was going to tell my mum. They also said I should prepare for family members to not believe me. I thought, you don’t know my family. They all stick up for each other. Well so I thought. My mum never wanted to talk about it. I understand now that was due to guilt, she had her own mental illnesses to deal with. My sister, well she turned against me for a few years. Saying I was lying, I tried to ruin my grans marriage with my lies, threatening to beat me up. My sister even tried to prove I was lying buy having him watch her new born baby whilst she went and done his food shop. When this man died, it got worse. My sister and aunt said they can’t grieve over him cause of the lies I said about him. Saying I’m evil and not wanting me near her child incase I do stuff to her. I had cousins asking “what exactly is it he did to you? My gran saying “he’s not a pedophile”. All this almost destroyed me. It was worse than the sexual abuse I had went through as a child. I decided I wanted away from my family. So I enrolled in college at 23, at 27 I was qualified and got straight into a job, I had been saving through college, so managed to move onto my own place pretty quickly. Now 33 years old and looking back I often think, did all that really happen. I’ve since moved further away from my family, Doing this has helped me stay away from their drama and only visit on occasions. They’re a lot better now, but I’d still rather keep my distance. I’m in a good place mentally. I’ve got great friends and built a good life for myself. My advice to anyone going thought it. Prepare yourself for family not to believe you. Only talk about it to people you trust and only when you want to talk about it. Don’t feel you need to explain yourself to anyone. The best thing my therapist said, no matter what you did or didn’t do, it wasn’t your fault. You were only a child.

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  • Message of Hope
    From a survivor
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    Hope is a good thing I kept my faith and hoped for a change and it happened

    Dear reader, this message contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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    I couldn't see me through myself now I'm lost in the forest and the trees

    I'm not going to spell check this story I'm talk texting it just so you know. My first memory as a child I was four moving into a new apartment with my mother and my first stepfather. My mother was a 17 year old heroin addict prostitute when she was pregnant with me by some Hells Angels Bikers who obviously never claimed me. She was a terrible I mean she wasn't a bad mother but she wasn't a mother she was just really fun to party with I guess there's always some sort of roof over my head my first stepfather I would watch him beat her unrecognizable to even myself on a regular basis he was an alcoholic and they were both heroin addicts I didn't know this at the time. He was verbally abusive and torturous to me as well as very physically violent from as early as I can remember. One of the times that she escaped him but she always went back of course we stayed with a friend of hers who had a son that was my age we were both five. The boy's grandparents owned a bar and a liquor store where we would stay in there apartment that was attached to them both while our mothers worked at the bar. I would wake up in the middle of the night in front of the TV on the floor with the boys Grandpa's hand in my pants and fingers inside. One night our mothers had gone out partying and back then we didn't have babysitters I'm sure we weren't any older than 6 years old we were sleeping in his mother's waterbed and he offered to do something to me that I would absolutely love and I said yes and he gave me oral the boy that was my age where no older than six at the most and I remember I loved it and he told me he would do it anytime I wanted all I had to do was ask. Parents teach their children Bad Touch no no spots you have to tell but when you're that age and you don't know any different and it feels good the last thing you want to do is tell anyone I remember being extremely mad when he wouldn't do it one time when I asked. My memories of being a child are spotty there's not a lot of them. I never met my real father I didn't know anything about him or my mom being what she was or what she was involved in when she got pregnant I had no clue. She always told me the reason I didn't have a dad was because this guy got her and another girl pregnant at the same time and chose to be with the other girl and we couldn't ruin their family by trying to track him down and he'd be mad cuz he wouldn't want to pay child support. My mother went through a slew of men all being drug dealers I never understood that or got that at the time. My grandparents hated me because I was basically the other woman's grandchild to my grandma my grandma was my step grandma that's a different story all together but she hated me and my mother was a loser drug addict so they both couldn't stand us. Lot of years went by running from physical abuse and share beatings from all of them some things I remember knowing sexually a very young age now looking back I'm 55 now I don't know how I could have known those things other than being involved in them but I think my brain blocked a lot of it out. And the third grade the little boy next door and I used to pose like the Playboy pictures my step dad had in his books naked and have oral. I had an aunt Carla that was when you're older than me when I was eight seven or eight and we experimented sexually together. I was always very sexually aware and spent a better part of my very very young childhood masturbating all of the time everywhere. The times that my mother was in contact with my grandparents we would go to their house for Christmas or Thanksgiving and I had three cousins to brothers and one sister all from the same family and my mom's half brother my uncle. We would all sleep on the floor in the living room together us kids probably up until age of 13 or 14 and I would always wake up at to my cousin Name playing with my privates. He was quite a bit older than me I know the last time we were there together I could not have been more than 13 and he had just come home from the military. My female cousin which I never understood as being wrong we would what she called tickle each other all over every time we spent the night at Grandma's. Now that's weird. When I was 13 I was introduced to my foster parents that I was unaware of apparently I was given to them at 6 months old when my mother went to prison and stayed with them until I was four I don't have one single memory of them or anything about them the entire time I was there I believed that they were my parents they had two sons that were my brothers they were fantastic people they were stereotypical nuclear 2.5 family when I met them at 13. So at that time I was only told that I was there for 6 months I didn't know it was for 4 years I also did not know that she never came to visit me so when Social Services came and took me back from them and gave me to her I did not know her she was a total stranger to me as well as the man she picked me up and took me home with I don't remember any of that until we walked through the door of the bedroom that she told me was mine. Then I proceeded to live in a life of abuse and alcoholism and heroin and cocaine and just party party my mom did never stop being younger partying she just drug me along with her. Basically I went from a perfect life with my foster parents into sexual assault and abuse Etc. I'm also guessing with no explanation for any of it back then as this was in the'70s early '70s. I have no recollection of being parented being taught about life or life lessons or anything like that growing up. I always hated my mother and I never understood why until I learned about being fostered for so long that made sense that I had no connection to her ever. I always only wanted the attention of men I wanted to grow up and be a stripper some men would like me pay attention to me never had any relationship friendship or parental child anything with any of my adults in my life that wasn't sexual. When I told my mother and my grandmother about my cousin assaulting me like that they didn't believe me. On my 21st birthday which is Christmas Eve so we were all together they got me drunk my cousins and that cousin proceeded to tell me that he had been in love with me his whole life and if he didn't know that it would give our grandmother a heart attack he would ask me to marry him he did not believe that it was wrong whatsoever. Skip way way ahead I'm hanging out with Mike female cousin at 21 years old who is insisting that if I ever decide that I want to be with females let her be the first one. Skip forward a little bit more and my second male cousin has invited me to live with him in City because he's doing very well for himself and he wants to give me an opportunity to build my life up go to school whatever which ends because I will not have sexual relations with him at some point and he did not understand how the fact that we share the same blood in our bodies made it wrong none of them did. I'm 55 years old right now and it did not occur to me until just today for some reason who did all that to them because somebody did. So the rest of my story isn't really so important other than I spent my entire years growing up a very pretty little girl young lady and no one ever wanted anything to do with me if it wasn't about sex and I just wanted people to want to be my friend and to like me and I want to hang out with me for anything other than sex notice I had a brain or I was fun or I had a sense of humor that's always been my plight I just want to be noticed and loved. Marrying a narcissist covert narcissist for 20 years did not do that for me. My mother got me addicted to cocaine when I was 15 I quit at 19 and started doing meth which I continued to do until I was 30 something I think and then I got clean and had my second child my first one died when she was born not because of drugs because of genetics I have my son and he fixed me that he fixed me all of me as far as I was concerned four years later we had a daughter oh yeah I forgot I got set up for this guy on a one night stand intentional one night stand for both of us and wake up pregnant and ended up with him a complete covert narcissist for 16 years I raised his child from a previous and then our son that was 4 here's younger then we had a her daughter we had a daughter 4 years later he was not a father he didn't do anything to help in the household with the family you girls know what I mean I don't have to explain that. Put all every one of my whole life was to grow up and have babies and be a wife and be a mom and be the family that I wasn't a part of growing up and I had that and I was so grateful I was so eternally gratefully happy that I thought that my marriage was making me happy it took me a lot of years to realize it wasn't my marriage at all he was a piece of s*** who neglected me it was my children that made me happy I accepted it I had my children and that's all I ever wanted was to grow up and have a family and not be my mother and give my children something that I didn't have which was family and he stuck around so I outweighed the situation and was willing to sacrifice whatever I had to to have that family. Finally after 16 years of it I couldn't take it anymore and for some reason one day I made the mistake of standing up for myself and demanding to not be treated horribly anymore because when all I wanted was to be noticed and loved in life that's exactly what he didn't do he neglected and rejected me day in and day out for decades so I just asked him to stop being mean to me I would beg him for my for his friendship I would beg him to just talk to me anything I knew we weren't in love but we had committed to this family and apparently we're both both going to stick it out I didn't see why we couldn't be a little bit happy birthday could you just please stop being mean and if you can't stop being mean then leave I didn't even ask him to be nice to me just not being mean which he refused and moved out into the park down the street now I'll just jump real forward my kids are 21 and 17 and he has turned them against me and they hate me we followed him across the United States to try to keep things together after he disappeared two days after finding out that our son was cutting himself we've been fighting off and on and we talked and he sat down with our son and promise he wasn't going to go across the country to visit his brother he was going to stick around and we were going to make things work and we were going to help fix him she might send it started cutting because his life was absolutely perfect day in and day out for the first 10 years of his life we never argued we never fought we didn't have problems he never called me names he didn't treat me badly he just didn't treat me like anything I protected him coddled my children and kept them from the evils of the world as much as I could and that was wrong because then when things went bad they had no idea how to handle it and I failed them and I got so wrapped up and trying to put back together or what I knew that they needed and I had messed up and put my own needs first for once which I had never done everything was always for them and I tried so hard to take it back that I lost my mind and I did not behave with any decorum or couth and instead of holding their hands and ushering them through the most difficult part of their life I lost my mind because I didn't know how to go through the most difficult time in mine and I pay for that daily and so do they unfortunately I didn't see any of it while it was happening I really didn't if you were my friend or even my enemy and you were going through the same exact things I went through with this whole situation and my kids and my husband I would have stood right by you and showed you hey you can't do that you know what they need is you got to do this and you got to be like that and I didn't have anyone there for me to help me like that and I didn't see myself I couldn't see me through myself do you know what I mean like the forest in the trees and I didn't see a lot of it until it was so so too late anyway he disappeared without a word went from California to Tennessee and for three straight months did not answer the phone and I continued to lose my mind and spiral deeper and deeper into a abyss of loss of control which was the only thing that I wanted in my life stability control for myself you know never had it growing up so now I'm spiraling deeper and time is going by and my children are getting ignored because I'm too busy going crazy calling texting. I finally make contact with him we talk and talk and talk and over the course of time agreed to reconcile and I will give up everything in California and put my kids in the car and drive to Tennessee to reconcile our family and so I did I gave up everything but the clothes that fit in the car and long story short on that we came to Tennessee just before I left California and just after I gave up everything of ours I learned that he had a girlfriend here and so I just drowned in that crazy uncontrollable crazy b**** face I lost my mind I lost sight and track of everything else but we still had to come out here so skipping over a bunch of Juicy stuff to get here here we came I sent my son first because he had to get signed up and start high school it was his first year of high school and we were waiting for text me to come to be able to afford to get her unbeknownst to me when my son got here at 14 years old instead of his father trying to help him just like his mother wasn't and he'd been cutting hardly my son stayed in a motel with his father and some girl and at that time and laughed my son didn't even know that those things existed my son did not know people did those things to each other he had no clue so he sucked deeper into that Cesspool of no one cares about me I don't matter so for the 3 months he was in Tennessee before his sister and I he never spoke to me once what was he going to say he wouldn't answer the phone to me you would not talk to me and that's when I lost him that was my baby and he has never really spoken to me since other than to tell me I should off myself. So we came to Tennessee and he was horribly horribly worse to me and I just could never understand why he was begging me to come here and then she has treating me like absolute garbage dirt at the same time it never made any sense to me and it drove me crazier and I could not figure out what was wrong with me what is wrong with me what am I doing it all became about me me and I lost my children's love more more more and more and the connection with them got further and further so now the only thing that's ever mattered to me I am completely out of touch with at this point in it and I don't even realize it I don't even realize it. So we got together we broke up we got together we broke up we got together we broke up when I learned that he was now advertising on Craigslist to sleep with men and I'm not lying about this not one but this is embellished if anything this isn't even the half of it I have no reason to b******* I wait a minute so even before that once we were here he left me for this chick and run off to City 2 with her while me and the kids were here in Tennessee and after 6 months of it not working I bought him a bus ticket to come back here because we're both parents right we're both parents and at this point I've been with this human being for 18 years and I don't know anything different anyway my daughter and I had been living in motels because I lost my home when he left for City 2 my son had already moved out from the age of 17 because he said he couldn't put up with her b******* anymore and I didn't blame him so he comes back he doesn't get a job I don't have enough money to afford the motels anymore we send my daughter to my mother-in-law's because she's about to start high school in a few days and we have to buy a tent and go to sleep in the woods until he procures a job and helps me save money to get into a place now . So now I'm living in a two-man tent in the middle of the Woods 2400 Mi away from home where I don't have anybody except for this person that hates me that I hate he saves the money and leaves me in the tent where I have been homeless now over 2 years my children hate me they won't speak to me it's all my fault that I'm a loser homeless person and Drug them across the country so all of that being said. My cousin Name it was the one who diddled my middle grew up to be some sort of Representative in Utah I don't know what his title is he married a woman that had three daughters and all I could think this whole time was I know he did it to them too and how much it disgusts me that this city in Utah has an elected official who is a child predator and a child molester how disgusting it is that people don't see people for what they are or who they are and the first time that I saw him on Facebook about 5 years into my marriage which I was married in 2004 and I contacted him and one of the first things I said was something to the effect of what he had done and his only response was oh now that's where we're going to start are you kidding me. I made an attempt one time and called the the newspaper there and ask them if they'd be interested in a story about their elected official but then when they got back to me i chickened out and never talked to them right now I want to contact his wife and let her know what she's been with this whole time because it makes me sick that he's just like nothing ever happened and there was nothing wrong with it. The good news is I'm not traumatized sexually or you know it didn't make me a w**** or a s*** it didn't make me not want sex it didn't make me gay it didn't make me not gay it didn't make me anything it didn't as disgusting and disturbing as it is to me my favorite way to have sex is the same way that he used to touch me which is bizarre but I'm pretty normal sexually it doesn't plague me it didn't change me as a person it didn't affect my life entirely and completely like some people it doesn't Define me it's never defined me as far as I'm concerned it's something that happens to everyone and when I raised my children it wasn't is it going to happen to them but when is it going to happen and who is it going to be so I guess I saw this site because I was looking up things to try to slyly jab him in the side like a thorn and involve myself in a couple of Facebook conversations he was having with other political members where they were arguing back and forth about Elon Musk doing that Hitler sign and how stupid they were I wanted to tell them because they're so focused on something that doesn't even matter in life that they don't even realize that they're talking to a sex offender child predator child molester but I wanted to do it in them most professional way so I started researching and asking questions on the internet and this is where I ended up somehow. I told the story hundreds of times it doesn't bother me it doesn't make me sad it doesn't make me anything except for disgusted I don't want or anything I dont want people to feel sorry for me or anything like that I just wanted to share my story because the first three that I read each of those stories were a piece of my total story if you added them all up when I was younger .I used to want to write a book because people say oh yeah my mom was an alcoholic or oh yeah my family was into drugs or oh my family was abusive or my family was neglectful I lived a piece of all of those things throughout my growing up all of them some people only experience one or two of those Lifestyles and I dabbled in a little bit of it all and I thought I could write a book where each chapter was dedicated to one section like that and then no matter who picked up the book and read it they would see that they weren't the only ones that there was someone out there that shared what they were going through or went through and they're not crazy and they're not bad and they're not alone so that's why I just puked out all the story which from what I can recall is about 300 times longer than any of the other ones I read sorry for that I hope I at least kept you entertained I could have made the story way more intense and detailed but I've already taken up too much of your time. I'm just curious should I tell her should I ruin her existence and tell her what she's been living with this whole time so she could at least ask her three daughters who are probably grown women at this point what he did to them should I tell his constituents you think that's going too far I mean it was decades ago. But considering the position that he's in in his community I am firmly against a child predator and molester rapist having the ability to be in control of deciding anything for anyone else and in their community I don't even think he's in office anymore I just think that people should know the type of person that they let have control then at the same time then the same thing happened with our president I mean basically basically nobody cared they still elected him so maybe I just want to matter to someone just matter enough for someone to tell you how you know it f*** that guy . The only other thing I got for you is aside from losing my family unit and the only thing that mattered to me my children the reason that I woke up every morning I don't have any other family members everyone's dead except for my molester cousins two of them the Name and the girl and I never had any brothers or sisters or anyone else so I'm all alone out here and it sucks 3,000 miles away from home haven't had a friend in the world for about 5 years now it's crazy I'm glad you could meet me I'm sorry I wasted so much of everyone's time really all I ask is don't you dare even suggest to yourself inside your own head that any of this is b******* it's just my life that's all and it's just some of it.

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    Story
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    Major Sexual Harassment

    It started as sexual harassment. And I let it happen. Do not let it happen to you! I was a college intern working on my supply-chain management major. In business school you know you don’t just get a degree and POOF! A job is magically waiting for you. Unless you already have connections. I was a single woman on financial aid and had squat for family connections. I needed to make some connections while still in school that I could use to climb the ladder. It is a very competitive world. A time when we don’t care so much where we work as long as it has prospects of advancement and making money. I was interning at the corporate offices for a rental car company. I got my first choice for a class in which we had to intern at a real company. My group of four was in their logistics offices and we had no clear job at the time but my school had sent students for a while so we had a contact person and some loose idea of a project that my group of four had to put together and execute for our grade. Well that was kind of of dud and I went along with the bad idea of planning more efficient distribution routes for their cars entering the fleet. It was naive because the company had real pros who designed the system. But, because of my feminine wiles, I got invited to come in and help in my free time by a top manager. Just me. I jumped at the opportunity and on my available days I showed up early in the morning and tried to be like part of the team. It was a very masculine environment. I tried to hang in spite of the pretenses for my special treatment. “You’re not one of those feminist types who go crying to HR if a man gives you a compliment or a pat on the backside, are you?” The man who first invited me had asked. We’ll call him XX. I assured him I was not, anticipating his expected answer. “Work hard, play hard,” was something I said in my denial of values he was obviously opposed to. So the couple times XX introduced me as his mistress I went along with the joke. Another stupid mistake. As an example of my environment, after a male Y in the department first showed me how to use part of a program that calculates stock outages, he had me sit and try it and gave me a massage I did not ask for early in the morning. Well XX came up and made a joke about Y getting his hands of his girl. They had some bro moment where the male Y asked him if he was serious, saying something about XX’s wife, to which XX backed down and said something like “It’s just a joke. I’d love to in my fantasies, but she’s company property, brother.” Company property??! I was sitting right there! I tensed up but tried to pretend I was so absorbed in the computer training as XX left and male Y went back to massaging me, but this time more boldly. He got down my lower back and upper buttock then went down the arms to my thighs, stopping me from doing any work as he blatantly brushed his forearms and hands against my chest. I felt so weak and almost paralyzed by the time I forced myself to stand up to go use the restroom, stopping it. I could have just done that at the beginning but did not. Later hat same day, XX had me go to lunch with him and have a beer at a bar and grill with a pool table. I was 20 but they did not ask for my ID because I was with XX. I hardly ever played pool and while we waited for our food he “showed” me how to play. He made fun of the cliché on movies and television where a man has a woman bend over the pool table to shoot just so he can push his crotch against her backside in a suggestive manger and lean over her with his arms on each side of her to show her how to slide the stick. But while he joked about it he actually did those things to me! That was a good day for my two main molesters and an awful day for me. XX hugged me as we stood up giggling and apparently his hands now had a license to molest my body whenever he wanted. I got numb to it in some ways, but emotionally more on edge. My butt was grabbed or spanked playfully in the department, even by male Y. A few other men were very flirtatious. My shoulders were rubbed, hugs on even minor greetings with XX and finally I was supposed to get used to little pecks on the lips too. I felt like I was in a constant state of mental anguish and defensiveness. My body could be attacked anytime. But I did not defend myself! I would say clearly to XX and some others that I wanted to be respected and considered one of the guys and have a job there when I graduated and they affirmed it. Both main abusers encouraged me, but still sexually harassed me. With my moronic blessing! The semester ended and I kept going in daily during summer break. It was my only lifeline to a possible job after I graduated in a year. I was so groomed that it was not a big leap at all when XX pressured me to give him head in his office. I refused with a smile and head shake and he came back with some rationalization about how I owed him and he really needed it just then. He would not take no for an answer. The first time I lowered myself to kneeling before his desk and took him in my mouth my hands were shaking and I teared up and had to sniffle snot back up. I was the one who was embarrassed! It was like an out of body experience and my mouth dried up to where I had to ask him to drink some of his energy drink. Internally there was a huge change immediately. I was gutted of all pride and self-worth. I was like a zombie. Hardly eating. Lots of coffee. Showing up and doing the reports that had become my responsibility and mechanically giving XX his daily BJ in the afternoon in his small stale office with a small window. I started to have migraines during that summer. I drove home for 4th of July and got so inebriated I ended up sleeping with my much older sister’s ex-husband in the back of his truck. That was a terrible wake up call. I knew I couldn’t pretend much longer without a breakdown so I put my two week in at the rental car place where I was working for free. To secure my future I made sure to keep it all friendly and “you know I’ll be back working here next year”. The idea of all the time and humiliation I had put in being lost to nothing was a major fear. I put myself through two last weeks of it. I had quickie sex with XX twice on and over his desk. I gave into extreme pressure and gave male Y a BJ too when he explicitly made it about a letter of recommendation. He knew about me doing it for XX. He did not even have his own office and we had to use the stairwell. During my final year of school I became aware that I was too traumatized to ever go back there anyway. The extent to which I had been used and abused became obvious to me, where before it had not. As if I had been living in a denial haze. It was a painful time. I was a bit reckless. I got a C in the high level economics elective I took. I said yes to several dates to avoid being alone and either slept with them or freaked out in anger at them. Seeing that I needed the car rental faux-internship on my resume I did email both abusers for letters of recommendation and got a good one from Male Y, but a very impersonal, generic one from XX. I was so dejected and angry. Finally, I told my sister, the one who confronted me about her ex-husband. I TOLD HER EVERYTHING AND THAT WAS MY FIRST STEP TO RECOVERY. To letting out the pain, screaming at myself in the mirror, punching the heavy bag at a boxing gym I joined, and to seeing my first psychologist and psychiatrist. The therapy helped more than the Celexa and antipsych. The support group helped even more. I met two friends for life who have my back in times of sorrow. I have to repeat that it is not my fault that I was abused, even though it kind of was. Don’t let it happen to you! They will take as much as they can from you. Plan your boundaries now and be assertive! Report harassment immediately. Doing so you are being a hero and protecting other women and yourself. If you have already been abused, GET OUT of the situation and talk to someone about it ASAP. There is nothing to be gained by letting the abuse continue! Talking to someone makes it real and lets you start the process of hating less and starting on the path to learning to love yourself again. You deserve real love.

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    Autistic voice

    I used to think rape was what you'd see in movies. Jumped on by a stranger and violently assaulted. Turns out I was wrong. I have been raped on multiple occasions and didn't fully understand it until I got older and wiser and also found out that I'm autistic. This is what helped me to understand what had really happened. I learned and studied autism in girls and women and figured it out from there. I was vulnerable and impressionable and masked so much that I was a completely different person on the outside than who I really was on the inside. When I was younger and had no clue that I was being preyed upon due to my vulnerability and started to pretend as though I just liked sex and was willingly promiscuous. It was a lie I told myself and my friends so that I didn't have to face the fact I couldn't and didn't know how to say no and mean it. There is flight, fight and also freeze. So many times I was telling them no and when they didn't stop I just froze and realised that my voice was pointless and they weren't listening to me. It was easier to allow them to finish without fighting and having it be violent too. I didn't realise how badly the mental impact would be. One particular night I was out in a bar and a few of us went back to a house party. One guy was showing interest in me and I actually liked it. We kissed and had fun and then he led me to a bedeoom and I hesitated but ended up going in. When he started to undress me I held my dress and said no. I said it so many times and he started to get really rough and forceful and started saying things to me about leading him on and what did I think was going to happen and I just wanted it rough. I realised that no matter what I said, sex was going to happen so I had two options, fight and be both violently and sexually assaulted or just have the sex without any further resistance which would mean that I'd be only sexually assaulted without the extra violence. I chose the latter and for a long time I believed that I just had sex that night. I now realise that was absolutely rape. It's played with my mental health for over ten years and I'm ready to acknowledge what happened to me instead of being in denial.

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    I am not just a tool

    All the memories that my mind seems to easily access day after day, are so much more difficult to verbalize. I have never shared my story, but thought this may help and maybe help others too. It's seems so selfish sharing it so I am glad this is anonymous so I don't carry guilt or worry of people's opinions. Due to my past, I have had a hard time separating myself from being the sexual tool and being normal. My parents separated when I was 3. My mom used heroine and married an abusive man shortly after. There's was extreme physical abuse in the home. (he beat us, locked us up, beat a dog to death infront of us, even shot my mom in the leg and made us care for it) When they ran short of money for their drugs, they would offer their friends to sexually assaulting me. I was 4 to 5 years old. They also encouraged my younger brother and I to act things out with each other. He would have to pee on me or I would have to play with his privates. I was once taken to a party at a house. It was a mansion with an elevator that I thought was so neat. I was taken up to a room and different men were allowed to touch me. Only one man actually had intercourse that day. I still have nightmares about him. All if this was soon found out and I was sent to live with my dad. He was an alcoholic so we stayed at my grandma's often. My brother, my younger cousin, and I played "doctor" all the time. It was all we knew. One Christmas when I was 8, I was told to go get my cousins. They were 16 and 18 and their friend. When I knocked on the door they told me to come in. They raped me in every way possible. No one even noticed I was gone. I went to the bathroom after and I was bleeding. I thought I was going to die that day. I thought I would bleed to death. That night my 16 year old cousin apologized and promised to keep me safe. For 3 years every time I was at my grandma's, I would sleep with him and he would rape me but gently. He told me I would be his wife. He told me he loved me and would always keep me safe. Whem he turned 21, he got another girl pregnant. He told me he had to marry her. Then he went home and shot himself in the head. I felt heartbroken. I slit my wrist to end the pain, but failed. My mom came back into my life with a new husband. He started wanting me to try in clothes for him. Then he started coming into my room and night and pleasing himself over me while touching me. I told my mom and she said no, he was abusing only her. She kicked him out. He hung himself shortly after. I had started acting out. I was giving 12th graders hard jobs in 7th grade on the bus. I thought my job was to please men. I was 15 before I realized that I was wrong. This realization came from people at school starting to call me a hoe and making fun of me. I changed my behaviors with lots of work. I had to watch other adults to figure out what normal was. People would ask when I lost my virginity and I didn't know what to tell them. I struggled mostly in relationships because I put all my value as a wife as how I could perform in bed. I carried so much guilt for the people I abused as a young child when I didn't know any better. Especially my younger cousin. I was only 5 or 6, but he was 3 or 4. He now is sitting in prison for drugs for a long long time. I wonder if what I did changed him like it changed me. I hold so much guilt for that. My brother is a drug addict and I wonder if what we did had a play in that. I feel guilt, like I was a year older and should have been protecting him. As an adult I can protect myself more. My dad did grab my butt and tell me I was sexy about 10 years ago, but I dont see him any more. My mom starvation from doing drugs 5 years ago. It is just me and I think about the toll it all has had on me. I feel different than everyone else. I feel damaged. I disassociate often. I have to ground myself. I domt trust people. I see the bad people can do, even people that seem normal. I grow every day though. I try to be the woman and mother I needed. I push myself to be better every day. I now have a great husband. Although I am unable to feel love, he still loves me daily. I have the most amazing kids. They do good in school and are great little people. I am proud of how far I have came. I still hold so much guilt, but every day is a new one.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    #400

    i cant really remember when it all "started" i was 6 or 7 i believe it lasted until i was 8 but he was still doing creepy shit until i was 9 or 10 one night he asked me what sex was im not sure what i said but i think i kinda knew what it was but didnt really know he asked to have sex i didnt know what to do i think i "contented" this time i was anxious the entire time i wanted him to stop i would tell him to quit and that i hear someone and he wouldnt stop after that it continued i dont remember the order or anything it happened i dont remember it really but he would use code words such as "wanna watch funny mine craft videos" i would try to convince him to watch ACTUAL funny minecraft videos but he wanted to watch porn or "have sex" i never would say yes when he would as for sex right away it usually was him begging me or manipulating or sometimes forcing himself on to me. he would say "you never wanna do what i wanna do", mock me, ask over and over again, or if i was sitting infront of him he would stick his private into the back of my pants. i remember oncs i kept saying stop and no when i was playing minecraft on his xbox and he kept sticking his yknow down my pants. he raped me one time. he usually just sexually assualted me (rubbed my private, grabbed boobs, did the whole sticking his private down my pants thing) but this time he begged and said since he touched my private (i didnt want him too) that i had to do stuff to him i told him no but he said i had to and its not fair shit like that yknow. he made me give him head basically. after that i put an "end" to it by threatening to tell if he asks me again. he acted all depressed. i felt guilty like i was doing something wrong. that wasnt the only reason why i felt so guilty. my dad passed away around that time and i thought he was watchkng over and hated me for what my cousin was doing for me because i thought i was "having sex" when i was pretty much sa the entire time. he still managed to do creepy things to me after. like holding me down and pressing his private aganist mine saying its "a game", writing this is making me grossed out i dont wanna think about this anymore i just need someone to actually listen to my story even though i dont havr all the details or good memory of what happened to me.

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    It happened at work . .

    I was so shocked. Being a single parent my career and professionalism means everything - including basic financial survival. I work for a small male dominated company. Part of my compensation includes a house on the property. I offered one of the rooms as a temporary conference room - 5 years later I had a growing side business and communicated with the appropriate 30 day notice that at the end of the year I would like to take this space in my home back. That set the owner off. He is emotionally unbalanced but I had no idea he would isolate me - came into the office barking for everyone to leave, he wanted to talk to me. Then he cornered me and after what seemed like very rehearsed rantings he talked about he and his wife’s $10k hobbies and in the same breath leaned forward leering and said “I bet your afraid some man is going to lock you in your basement and rape your ass”. I was speechless, and breathless - thinking he is having knee replacement surgery - if he moved closer I could kick that knee . . When he was done ranting at me - he wanted a hug. I was so throughly disgusted - but afraid - so with tears down my face gave him a hug - I just wanted it to end, for him to leave . . I had my first panic attack as soon as he left, I had my next one the next day. A week later I had stroke level HBP - and made sure to document this with my physician. When I finally told someone, I had such a physical reaction I was admitted to the CCU - Cardiac Care Unit for a few days. While I have not had a similar encounter since, I do have pepper spray and a knife in 6 places in and around where I work and live.

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    Life does get better.

    When I was 7, I started being sexually abused. This wasn’t by a family member, it was my grans second husband. It all stopped when I was 12, when we moved a few miles away and he didn’t visit as much. When I was 17, I was having therapy for other things, it eventually came out then. They helped me decide how I was going to tell my mum. They also said I should prepare for family members to not believe me. I thought, you don’t know my family. They all stick up for each other. Well so I thought. My mum never wanted to talk about it. I understand now that was due to guilt, she had her own mental illnesses to deal with. My sister, well she turned against me for a few years. Saying I was lying, I tried to ruin my grans marriage with my lies, threatening to beat me up. My sister even tried to prove I was lying buy having him watch her new born baby whilst she went and done his food shop. When this man died, it got worse. My sister and aunt said they can’t grieve over him cause of the lies I said about him. Saying I’m evil and not wanting me near her child incase I do stuff to her. I had cousins asking “what exactly is it he did to you? My gran saying “he’s not a pedophile”. All this almost destroyed me. It was worse than the sexual abuse I had went through as a child. I decided I wanted away from my family. So I enrolled in college at 23, at 27 I was qualified and got straight into a job, I had been saving through college, so managed to move onto my own place pretty quickly. Now 33 years old and looking back I often think, did all that really happen. I’ve since moved further away from my family, Doing this has helped me stay away from their drama and only visit on occasions. They’re a lot better now, but I’d still rather keep my distance. I’m in a good place mentally. I’ve got great friends and built a good life for myself. My advice to anyone going thought it. Prepare yourself for family not to believe you. Only talk about it to people you trust and only when you want to talk about it. Don’t feel you need to explain yourself to anyone. The best thing my therapist said, no matter what you did or didn’t do, it wasn’t your fault. You were only a child.

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    Abused by Gynecologist

    In my survival story, "Just Words, Dirty Words", I shared so much and I brushed over an experience with a male gynecologist. It was a much bigger deal that I let on because it had triggered my previous abuse as an adolescent on my first job. I wonted other girls and women to understand what is not okay for a gynecologist to do. It was not until after it happened that I realized the full impact. I realized I had let myself be victimized again without trying to stop it. I felt self-loathing and anxiety. I write this letter to that opportunistic predator. You broke your oath. You betrayed the trust. You are terrible! I have done research on what a breast and pelvic exam is supposed be like and understand you used the framework to sexually assault me. I was late for the appointment to get birth control at the university clinic when I had just moved for college. You let me in even though you had no nurse chaperon, it seemed that you might have sent them home after putting me in the room. You are a man and that is against policy. We shared our first eye contact and I ignored your lust and first glance flirtation. You saw I was vulnerable and needed something from you. You told me as a new patient you have to do a full first visit exam. Now I believe you may have lied. I nodded and put down my guard. When you returned I was undressed wearing a paper smock for a false sense of security. I was self conscious even though I had impeccable hygiene and grooming but worried I was not fresh enough so late in the day because you were a man and you made it sexual. You examined my breasts with no gloves. I said nothing. I knew you were massaging them for you pleasure. You went on for five minutes like that. I think five whole minutes while you kept talking. When my boss used to molest me just seconds was plenty to make me feel sick and used. He would sit on my torso, compressing my ribs to the point I could not take a deep breath and have sex with my breasts and he usually took less time than you. do remember you used the words “wonderful” and “amazing” when commenting on by breast health. We could both smell the musk from down below from stimulating me like that. I was embarrassed. You should have been the one ashamed! You mentioned the textures and gave some instructional anatomy to pretend it might be official. You asked random questions and you shared personal stories like it was a date. All the while you were groping my tits like a pervert. Both hands at the same time! I tried to cover for you by pretending like this was not insane and not a sexual assault. You were twice my age and your mustache was ridiculous. You finally moved on to the pelvic exam. You said the words, “Very nice” when you lifted up the paper drape to help my feet into the stirrups. That is not appropriate when viewing a patient’s vagina for the first time. You explained every step from “I’m going to touch your thighs now” to “take a deep breath as I insert the speculum”. That part was quick but then you explained the manual exam that you did for too long. You inserted two fingers to check for cervical motion tenderness but rubbed my clitoris with your lubricated thumb as you did so. That was wrong! You explained that you were going to move your other hand to check for tenderness of my ovaries to check for infection but kept working your other hand on my clit and inside me. You put what felt like three fingers in me! You were sexually assaulting me again. Breaching my trust. Ignoring you oath. As a last indignity you felt for masses in the space between my vagina and rectum. You left your thumb in my vagina while you put a finger in my anus and moved them both back and in and out explaining you thought you felt something for a second but it resolved on massage, meaning it was nothing to worry about. You raped me! That was rape! I looked it up and what you were doing is a real part of an exam but no gynecologist had done that before then or ever since! Instead of leaving the room while I dressed you stayed and helped by holding out my clothes! Totally inappropriate! You should not have a medical license! Sure I let you, and I cooperated, and even tried to endure it and put on a pleasant face. I was a different person then and you just continued my cycle of being abused by men. But the anus part was where I felt true terror and wanted to get out. You gave me a business card with your name on it and told me to call and ask when you were working to schedule next visit. Then you only wrote me for 1 refill on 30 day birth control! Like I would even come back to be assaulted again. You smug abuser of power and trust! I left with you thinking I enjoyed that and would see you again!!! You make me want to scream and pound on things! It was delayed, but my abuse anxiety was triggered that night, and days after. I will never see a male gynecologist again. Your lust and greed is not better than that of a rapist. You broke my trust in the medical system and I still get anxiety at any doctor visit. Just because a girl’s reaction to abuse is not instant, because of some survival mechanism, does not make it any less painful. Sometimes even more, because we feel guilty for not being strong and assertive. You were in a position of authority and abused it so badly. You should be ashamed, doctor! You should be in prison!

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    Awakening my mind to peace

    Starting off, I want to share that healing is not the same for everybody. We all take different paths, bumps or curves in the road, or heal directly, without interference. Me personally, it took about 2-4 years until I realized I had been sexually assaulted. When I first learned the meaning, I presumed it "didn't count", and that it wasn't what I thought due to the manner of which the act was committed. I spoke with a close friend online, and he helped me to understand that it in fact was, sexual assault. I was about 13-14 at this time, I'd never been taught the importance or gruesome facts of sexual assault. I resented many people, accordingly my parents for not informing me, or preparing me. I blamed many others including myself. Although, it never felt as if the weight was taken off of my chest, off of my head, or my body. At 15, I sought help via the suicide hotline. I felt like there was nothing left for me, and the shame I felt, my lack of a voice to speak out. I was provided appropriate resources, indulged myself in meditation, which did have a positive effect, yet wasn't enough. Nobody in my life knew of what happened, except for a mystery woman on the other end of the hotline. I remembered then the ease I felt speaking to that one woman whom I hadn't even known, and realized the ease I could feel if I told people I DID know. I began to speak to friends, and anyone I trusted although never my parents, and still have not. Now, I'm older although there are struggles still with my nightmares, some guilt, I have found peace. I've found strength, courage, a feather now on my chest replacing the 40 pound anchor sunk into it, my heart and mind has healed. I've found love for others and myself. In the time I've spent healing from self harm, suicidal tendencies, self isolation, and guilt, I've learned one important factor, and that is I am not, alone. Nobody is alone in their struggles and there is something out there or somebody at all times to positively rebuild us and guide us to peace. I hope for anybody and everybody struggling to find peace, finds that peace, and can one day replace the anchor with the same feather.

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  • “You are the author of your own story. Your story is yours and yours alone despite your experiences.”

    “These moments in time, my brokenness, has been transformed into a mission. My voice used to help others. My experiences making an impact. I now choose to see power, strength, and even beauty in my story.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇰🇷

    To open the door.

    Please understand that I am not good at English. There is a room deep inside now. In the past, when I thought of it, there was a door wrapped around a complex lock, but now it has become a room with very small lights. At that time, I was excited and tried to see the next gallery before my family. It was the most remote place in the exhibition hall and it was a little dark. Suddenly, something caught me from behind. My mouth was blocked and I couldn't say anything. What still doesn't come to mind is that I can't remember where my hands were without covering my mouth. I just felt like squeezing my penis when I first revived my memory at the counseling center. Without knowing how long it took, it disappeared into the darkness when my family began to come here. From then on, I got myself. I talked to me for the first time. "What happened to me?" "Did he cast a spell on me?" My curse began then. Everything felt different. My close school friends and teachers felt scary, and everything that followed me was scary. He suffered from an unidentified abdominal pain and vomited. Less than half of my academic performance came out, and whenever I had time, I cut the walls of my room with a cutter knife. It is no exaggeration to say that my life has lived to be liberated from this curse since that day. I have visited countless hospitals and consulted numerous counselors. Last year, about 12 years ago, I remembered being dissociated for the first time. I wanted to punish it so much. And that fact has not changed even now. And now I want to achieve my dream of ending this curse and achieving it without running away from it. Thank you for having a place to talk about this. I want to overcome it with everyone who came here.

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  • “I have learned to abound in the joy of the small things...and God, the kindness of people. Strangers, teachers, friends. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, but there is good in the world, and this gives me hope too.”

    Message of Hope
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    We are not alone. I am here for you. We are together.

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  • You are wonderful, strong, and worthy. From one survivor to another.

    Taking ‘time for yourself’ does not always mean spending the day at the spa. Mental health may also mean it is ok to set boundaries, to recognize your emotions, to prioritize sleep, to find peace in being still. I hope you take time for yourself today, in the way you need it most.

    Message of Hope
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Hope is a good thing I kept my faith and hoped for a change and it happened

    Dear reader, this message contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • “To anyone facing something similar, you are not alone. You are worth so much and are loved by so many. You are so much stronger than you realize.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    It Started with my Brother

    I was used by my brother who has grown up a lot but I still carry scars. My brother is four years older than me and when I was going from elementary school to Junior high, that summer, he made me think that girls in junior high need to know how to give oral to boys. First he did oral to me to show me it was not a big deal. I thought it was a huge deal. But I did it and he got me trained and had me keep it a secret, except from by best friend. He had his friend over when I had a sleepover one night and had her do it to his friend. Then they would have us do contests where they wear blindfolds. At least I was not alone then. It changed me even though seventh grade itself had nothing to do with anything like that. It was a lie to get pleasure from me. My brother still had me doing it at home. And sometimes he would do it to me and I did climax. So I had this weird secret sex life and felt really messed up about it. Then in eight grade I had my first real boyfriend. My parents are so strict, even though they both worked and left me alone with my brother. To go to the movies with my boyfriend they made sure it was with a group and took me there and waited outside the theater. Well one time when we went to see Snow White and the Huntsman my same BFF and me went through with our plan to go down on our guys in the last row of the theater and we did it. It was only a month later I started having sex with him which never would have happened if not for what my brother had done. We snuck out from her place during a sleepover and met the boys outside and went to the nearby park and did it in the grass. That was my virginity. The really bad event, where my life got knocked off the tracks, is when we tried it from my house, sneaking out the window and going just out farther into my big back yard that opened into nothing but the side of a big hill and my dad caught us. It was awful. The world ended. I was treated like a huge betrayer and almost all my privileges were revoked and essentially I was grounded without any end date. And still by brother would make me do the oral. I was broken hearted because I was not allowed to have my boyfriend to the point my parents made me go to the school and talk to the principal and vice principal and they made sure I would not have any chance to ever see him alone. And my brother kept creeping in at night sometimes or when we were left alone expecting me to do what he had trained me to be used to. The next really bad part was two months into my new restricted life. My brother started doing his oral on me one afternoon after school and decided to take it farther and got up and started kissing me and had sex with me. I was in the moment and did not do anything to stop him and even participated. No condom. It was an afternoon when my parents were away and so we did not have to keep quiet or worry and he did it so much longer than my few times with my boyfriend, because he was older and knew more from being with other girls that I got sore for my first time and got a urine infection. I did not eat my dinner that night and pretended to be sick and cried myself to sleep. My brother really wanted to do it again, telling me it was the best sex he ever had, but I refused and one thing I could say for him back then was at least he was not a rapist. Even though he pressured me he never tried to force himself inside me. Four months after I had lost my incest virginity the school year ended and he graduated. I went to high school and he moved out to live in college dorms 120 miles from our home town. Public school was over for me, as was planned as soon as my dad caught me on the hill. I went to an all girl’s Catholic high school. My dad had to drive me a half hour every morning and my mom picked me up from my whole first year. Then they got me a car so I could drive myself but the mileage and my times were closely monitored. I did not have an intercourse throughout high school but seven times total I did oral on my brother during summer and winter breaks when we were both at home. That was the end of incest in my life. I went to college in Atlanta but not the same one as my brother. I rebelled against my parents and even though they tried to keep control, as a legal adult I did not let them. Turmoil and sadness lasted months until they finally got it. I separated from them financial and worked and took out student loans. I was very promiscuous in college. I drank, partied and used drugs recreationally and had several guys I was seeing on and off for mostly sex. That was my life and I thought I enjoyed it at the time. I became stronger and more assertive and when my brother first hinted during a Thanksgiving meeting at our relative’s house that we go for a drive I told him I never wanted to touch him again in such a powerful way that he knew I was off limits and even seemed like the scared one in our relationship. I didn’t enroll in classes for two nonconsecutive semester just because my party life was so much more fun. I traveled on and off. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with men, usually older, who invited me to exotic places. The Maldives, Portugal, The Virgin Islands. I let my married boss use me for a weekend in Key West. I had an affair with my Spanish teacher, who only took me as far as Panama City, Florida. So many risky one night stands. My identity was that I was not looking for anything permanent, a child of the universe. While I was used as a plaything so many times and believed I liked the game. I would tell them things about wanting to make their dick happy and stuff that would inflate their ego. I’m sure there are so many text messages out there that they saved about the size of their D fitting in my little P, about being a little girl wanting them to teach me to be woman and other depraved fantasies I thought they wanted to hear. Obviously directly related to what my brother did to me. I am almost positive I avoided being raped more than once by going with the flow when I did not expect to or probably want to. It may be good that some of them I probably don’t remember. Once was at one of the few fraternity parties I ever went to. It was three guys, not my usual style. Once was with my roommate's father who was visiting her at our rented house and found his way to my bed in the early morning. One of the more extreme traumatic events was with a police officer who pulled me over for driving when I had been drinking but was under the legal limit on his breathalyzer. He followed me home, like a mile away, “for my safety” and even followed me inside. I was in an apartment then and I thought my roomate was home and told him so. But when she wasn’t there he said I lied to a police officer and he had to do a more thorough search if I wanted to avoid being arrested. He was not attractive or nice. He had a gun thought he never took it out. You can guess what happened. I finally shed that wild life during my second to last semester when I saw the end of college coming. My G.P.A was 3.3. and my major was philosophy and it dawned on me that the future was not bright in terms of what I would do or how I would pay back my loans. I buckled down and decided to change. I had an offer to strip and ‘make a lot of money’ but thankfully not only did never considered myself like that, but when I went with a friend for her interview and they tried to recruit me they were so sleazy we both ran out of there disgusted. I reevaluated my whole life. I considered ending it, but some survival mechanism did not allow it. I did not want to be the person I had been for a few years. I looked ahead and saw it was not sustainable as I aged and had no real love or stability. I quit serving when I got an offer to work in a legal office. I slept with the manager who hired me as a receptionist but it was a drop in the bucket of things to be shameful of. He was the last one like that. I got all A’s and graduated cum laude. I got promoted in the firm mostly by title but used it to spring away and take a lower paying job in a nonprofit law firm where I had not slept with anyone. There I did sleep with a lawyer but I am married to him still and my life is back together. I love him and he loves me. He does not know the extent of my sluttiness in college or about my brother and I doubt he ever will. That darkness is fading and it is not part of my life now. It is not who I am. As for my brother, he has a family now and we are on good terms. We did talk about it once while I was studying like crazy my senior year, although it was not a big deep talk. I did mention that he used me, he apologized, we hugged, and that was it. Not the cathartic confrontation some might expect. My catharsis is my husband, and my life now that I am grateful for. We adopted two toddler brothers and I am their mom. Maybe we’ll have one of our own. Maybe we’ll adopt again. I was used and introduced to sex too young and early and it strained my relationship with my parents for a long time and I’ll never get that back. It derailed my life. I was set adrift for a while but God or the universe or random luck finally put me in a good place. Everything that happened led me what I have now. I can’t say I never contemplated suicide in darker times. But like in the move Cast Away, if I may quote, “I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am.” Thousands of hours spent studying philosophy and I quote a movie that was not even based on a book. But it’s perfect.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • Community Message
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    PTSD developed in middle school.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    No One Believed Me

    I was 14. We were at sleep away church summer camp. Me and one of my friends had been giving people tattoos. He asked for one, of course. Wanted some lyrics on his hand that were far too inappropriate for a church camp. He put his hand on my thigh to give me 'better access to his hand'. Conversation between the three of us got dirty, quick. I hate to say that i participated in it, but I did. I have a tendency to get greedy about male attention, stemming from little to no attention from my deadbeat father. Fast forward a little bit, about an hour later. Me, a few of my friends, and him. We made our way from the chapel to the lodge for dinner. He waits till we're in the far corner of the line to grope me roughly, whispering horrible, degrading things into my ear. Young, starstruck, naïve me thought he loved me so much that he would tell me those things. It was only after he tried to force himself down my throat that I realized how terrible it was. I didn't want my innocence to be taken by an older teen who i had just met, much less in a chapel. When i told the counselors, they seemed like they believed me. But his father was a major donator. My friends didn't believe me because he was 'attractive'. When i told my mother, she didn't believe me. "You probably led him on, so he thought it was fine." No. If 'Yes' was never explicitly said, then it's not consent. Since then, I've struggled. I've questioned my religion. But then I thought, why am i giving this horrible boy any extra thought? And why does everyone I love believe his word over mine? Maybe because they never really loved me. Maybe because it was easier to pretend it never happened. But a real supporter would take the scared child's word before considering the almost adult male who had a history of sexual disturbances.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    Growing up verbally and emotionally abused can be debilitating.

    Most of the abuse and neglect I grew up with was verbal abuse and emotional neglect. It was a lot of being yelled at by a parent. A lot of violence on objects in our presence - fists pounding on the dinner table, milk pitchers getting thrown off the table while we were all seated, banished to my room when I was angry and upset, a telephone getting violently torn from the wall while a sister and I stood inches away. The phone incident occurred at night. My memory is my sister and I were in bed. We were called out of our bedroom and yelled at for going to bed without doing the dishes. We were told we were lucky because our parent was so mad at us for not doing the dishes that they wanted to hit us but they didn’t hit us, instead they violently tore the phone out of the wall in front of us. I didn’t feel lucky. I was very upset, angry and scared and walked out of the house at night in my nightgown crying. I was then told I was overreacting and crying in order to get attention and sympathy. Another night as a younger child, I was having nightmares and crying. I was really scared and upset and couldn’t sleep. A parent came to my room and slapped me repeatedly every few seconds on my cheek. As they slapped me, they told me I would continue to get slapped until I stopped crying. I was slapped on the face every few seconds until my crying stopped. I am learning that as a result of the verbal abuse and emotional neglect I grew up with, I have thought and acted as though I was to blame for how I was treated as a child. I have lived a life plagued with guilt and self-reproach. My brain interpreted how I was treated as how I deserved to be treated and that I, not my parents, were at fault. If I hadn’t been scared and crying, I wouldn’t have gotten slapped. If I had done the dishes, the phone wouldn’t have been torn out of the wall in front of me. It’s pretty messed up thinking but not uncommon in people who were treated the way I was as a child. I am working hard to unlearn that way of thinking. The effects of the abuse and neglect endure to the present day. I have come to understand that a lot of my current overwhelming emotions like rage, anger, depression and passive suicide ideation are throwbacks to my childhood when no one helped me contain, process and move through big, strong, volatile feelings. As a result, I have had bouts of profound and debilitating depression. I have been passively suicidal, wishing I was dead or at least in a hospital. All my siblings have suffered. I have a sister who has been hospitalized over fifty times for mental health issues and is also on disability for those issues. I have pretty constant low grade anxiety that has been around so long I wasn't aware of it until recently, such a part of my being it is. I am hyper-vigilant and routinely react to present day situations in ways that don't match the present day issue. Something minor can happen and instead of being slightly bothered by it and quickly returning to calm, my nervous system interprets it as an unsafe situation, I unconsciously go on high alert and have an overblown reaction. I also frequently interpret a benign situation as dangerous. For example, I hear a certain tone in someone's voice and suddenly I think I'm about to get yelled at, hit, or have something thrown at me when someone is merely telling me I dropped a dollar bill on the floor. Learning about complex ptsd (cptsd) has been extremely helpful as has Internal Family Systems (IFS) and my therapy which is in part traditional therapy but also trauma informed with a lot of body based, bottom up (as opposed to brain based, head down) concepts and work. I was 56 when I realized I am dealing with cptsd and now feel, in many ways, like a new person. It’s never too late!

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇬🇧

    My Story

    This girl who did this to me, everyone thought we were sisters we were so close but here’s my story… Throughout being 9-13 I was molested by my cousin who is a year younger than me I know it sounds weird but we knew from a young age that she had things wrong with her. Her mum is a drug addict who’s been in and out her life for as long as I can remember I grew up with her and we were always so close. I never saw anything wrong with what she was doing because she made it into games so I didn’t see that there was anything wrong with it. I also have mental issues but when I started to realise what she was doing was more than “games” I didn’t stay at my grandads for a while because we used to spend every weekend there together. But then the last 6 months of lockdown she had to come live with me and I had never told anyone what she had been doing to me but nothing happens threw out the 6 months because we didn’t have to share a bed thankfully I had a cabin bed which is like a bunk bed and she was in a mattress on the floor and one night I heard making weird noises and I looked over to see her masterbating but never said a word. Then afterwords she went to live with her sister which she still does now and my grandad told us he bought two beds so we didn’t have to share whenever we came over anymore and he got me a cabin bed so I was fine so I stayed there a couple times and nothing happened so I started trusting her again and then one night she made us make a den like we used to when she was. Younger I didn’t want to but she said “well I’m already having a bad day your just making it worse” so I just did make it then I woke up and she was raping me but I couldn’t move all I could do was cry but she didn’t notice then we she stopped all I could hear was her finishing herself off and then she kissed me on the top of my back which to this day makes me feel so dirty but then I could move I grabbed my shorts put them on grabbed my phone ran out side and called my dad and he came and got me and he asked her what she was doing and she just sat there saying she didn’t do anything to this day j haven’t spoke to her and she’s tried to get in touch with me multiple times. Also she told her sister that she doesn’t get why she doesnt talk to me anymore I hate her I hate her I could never tel my family the details and how long she actually did it for all they know about is that one night.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    I couldn't see me through myself now I'm lost in the forest and the trees

    I'm not going to spell check this story I'm talk texting it just so you know. My first memory as a child I was four moving into a new apartment with my mother and my first stepfather. My mother was a 17 year old heroin addict prostitute when she was pregnant with me by some Hells Angels Bikers who obviously never claimed me. She was a terrible I mean she wasn't a bad mother but she wasn't a mother she was just really fun to party with I guess there's always some sort of roof over my head my first stepfather I would watch him beat her unrecognizable to even myself on a regular basis he was an alcoholic and they were both heroin addicts I didn't know this at the time. He was verbally abusive and torturous to me as well as very physically violent from as early as I can remember. One of the times that she escaped him but she always went back of course we stayed with a friend of hers who had a son that was my age we were both five. The boy's grandparents owned a bar and a liquor store where we would stay in there apartment that was attached to them both while our mothers worked at the bar. I would wake up in the middle of the night in front of the TV on the floor with the boys Grandpa's hand in my pants and fingers inside. One night our mothers had gone out partying and back then we didn't have babysitters I'm sure we weren't any older than 6 years old we were sleeping in his mother's waterbed and he offered to do something to me that I would absolutely love and I said yes and he gave me oral the boy that was my age where no older than six at the most and I remember I loved it and he told me he would do it anytime I wanted all I had to do was ask. Parents teach their children Bad Touch no no spots you have to tell but when you're that age and you don't know any different and it feels good the last thing you want to do is tell anyone I remember being extremely mad when he wouldn't do it one time when I asked. My memories of being a child are spotty there's not a lot of them. I never met my real father I didn't know anything about him or my mom being what she was or what she was involved in when she got pregnant I had no clue. She always told me the reason I didn't have a dad was because this guy got her and another girl pregnant at the same time and chose to be with the other girl and we couldn't ruin their family by trying to track him down and he'd be mad cuz he wouldn't want to pay child support. My mother went through a slew of men all being drug dealers I never understood that or got that at the time. My grandparents hated me because I was basically the other woman's grandchild to my grandma my grandma was my step grandma that's a different story all together but she hated me and my mother was a loser drug addict so they both couldn't stand us. Lot of years went by running from physical abuse and share beatings from all of them some things I remember knowing sexually a very young age now looking back I'm 55 now I don't know how I could have known those things other than being involved in them but I think my brain blocked a lot of it out. And the third grade the little boy next door and I used to pose like the Playboy pictures my step dad had in his books naked and have oral. I had an aunt Carla that was when you're older than me when I was eight seven or eight and we experimented sexually together. I was always very sexually aware and spent a better part of my very very young childhood masturbating all of the time everywhere. The times that my mother was in contact with my grandparents we would go to their house for Christmas or Thanksgiving and I had three cousins to brothers and one sister all from the same family and my mom's half brother my uncle. We would all sleep on the floor in the living room together us kids probably up until age of 13 or 14 and I would always wake up at to my cousin Name playing with my privates. He was quite a bit older than me I know the last time we were there together I could not have been more than 13 and he had just come home from the military. My female cousin which I never understood as being wrong we would what she called tickle each other all over every time we spent the night at Grandma's. Now that's weird. When I was 13 I was introduced to my foster parents that I was unaware of apparently I was given to them at 6 months old when my mother went to prison and stayed with them until I was four I don't have one single memory of them or anything about them the entire time I was there I believed that they were my parents they had two sons that were my brothers they were fantastic people they were stereotypical nuclear 2.5 family when I met them at 13. So at that time I was only told that I was there for 6 months I didn't know it was for 4 years I also did not know that she never came to visit me so when Social Services came and took me back from them and gave me to her I did not know her she was a total stranger to me as well as the man she picked me up and took me home with I don't remember any of that until we walked through the door of the bedroom that she told me was mine. Then I proceeded to live in a life of abuse and alcoholism and heroin and cocaine and just party party my mom did never stop being younger partying she just drug me along with her. Basically I went from a perfect life with my foster parents into sexual assault and abuse Etc. I'm also guessing with no explanation for any of it back then as this was in the'70s early '70s. I have no recollection of being parented being taught about life or life lessons or anything like that growing up. I always hated my mother and I never understood why until I learned about being fostered for so long that made sense that I had no connection to her ever. I always only wanted the attention of men I wanted to grow up and be a stripper some men would like me pay attention to me never had any relationship friendship or parental child anything with any of my adults in my life that wasn't sexual. When I told my mother and my grandmother about my cousin assaulting me like that they didn't believe me. On my 21st birthday which is Christmas Eve so we were all together they got me drunk my cousins and that cousin proceeded to tell me that he had been in love with me his whole life and if he didn't know that it would give our grandmother a heart attack he would ask me to marry him he did not believe that it was wrong whatsoever. Skip way way ahead I'm hanging out with Mike female cousin at 21 years old who is insisting that if I ever decide that I want to be with females let her be the first one. Skip forward a little bit more and my second male cousin has invited me to live with him in City because he's doing very well for himself and he wants to give me an opportunity to build my life up go to school whatever which ends because I will not have sexual relations with him at some point and he did not understand how the fact that we share the same blood in our bodies made it wrong none of them did. I'm 55 years old right now and it did not occur to me until just today for some reason who did all that to them because somebody did. So the rest of my story isn't really so important other than I spent my entire years growing up a very pretty little girl young lady and no one ever wanted anything to do with me if it wasn't about sex and I just wanted people to want to be my friend and to like me and I want to hang out with me for anything other than sex notice I had a brain or I was fun or I had a sense of humor that's always been my plight I just want to be noticed and loved. Marrying a narcissist covert narcissist for 20 years did not do that for me. My mother got me addicted to cocaine when I was 15 I quit at 19 and started doing meth which I continued to do until I was 30 something I think and then I got clean and had my second child my first one died when she was born not because of drugs because of genetics I have my son and he fixed me that he fixed me all of me as far as I was concerned four years later we had a daughter oh yeah I forgot I got set up for this guy on a one night stand intentional one night stand for both of us and wake up pregnant and ended up with him a complete covert narcissist for 16 years I raised his child from a previous and then our son that was 4 here's younger then we had a her daughter we had a daughter 4 years later he was not a father he didn't do anything to help in the household with the family you girls know what I mean I don't have to explain that. Put all every one of my whole life was to grow up and have babies and be a wife and be a mom and be the family that I wasn't a part of growing up and I had that and I was so grateful I was so eternally gratefully happy that I thought that my marriage was making me happy it took me a lot of years to realize it wasn't my marriage at all he was a piece of s*** who neglected me it was my children that made me happy I accepted it I had my children and that's all I ever wanted was to grow up and have a family and not be my mother and give my children something that I didn't have which was family and he stuck around so I outweighed the situation and was willing to sacrifice whatever I had to to have that family. Finally after 16 years of it I couldn't take it anymore and for some reason one day I made the mistake of standing up for myself and demanding to not be treated horribly anymore because when all I wanted was to be noticed and loved in life that's exactly what he didn't do he neglected and rejected me day in and day out for decades so I just asked him to stop being mean to me I would beg him for my for his friendship I would beg him to just talk to me anything I knew we weren't in love but we had committed to this family and apparently we're both both going to stick it out I didn't see why we couldn't be a little bit happy birthday could you just please stop being mean and if you can't stop being mean then leave I didn't even ask him to be nice to me just not being mean which he refused and moved out into the park down the street now I'll just jump real forward my kids are 21 and 17 and he has turned them against me and they hate me we followed him across the United States to try to keep things together after he disappeared two days after finding out that our son was cutting himself we've been fighting off and on and we talked and he sat down with our son and promise he wasn't going to go across the country to visit his brother he was going to stick around and we were going to make things work and we were going to help fix him she might send it started cutting because his life was absolutely perfect day in and day out for the first 10 years of his life we never argued we never fought we didn't have problems he never called me names he didn't treat me badly he just didn't treat me like anything I protected him coddled my children and kept them from the evils of the world as much as I could and that was wrong because then when things went bad they had no idea how to handle it and I failed them and I got so wrapped up and trying to put back together or what I knew that they needed and I had messed up and put my own needs first for once which I had never done everything was always for them and I tried so hard to take it back that I lost my mind and I did not behave with any decorum or couth and instead of holding their hands and ushering them through the most difficult part of their life I lost my mind because I didn't know how to go through the most difficult time in mine and I pay for that daily and so do they unfortunately I didn't see any of it while it was happening I really didn't if you were my friend or even my enemy and you were going through the same exact things I went through with this whole situation and my kids and my husband I would have stood right by you and showed you hey you can't do that you know what they need is you got to do this and you got to be like that and I didn't have anyone there for me to help me like that and I didn't see myself I couldn't see me through myself do you know what I mean like the forest in the trees and I didn't see a lot of it until it was so so too late anyway he disappeared without a word went from California to Tennessee and for three straight months did not answer the phone and I continued to lose my mind and spiral deeper and deeper into a abyss of loss of control which was the only thing that I wanted in my life stability control for myself you know never had it growing up so now I'm spiraling deeper and time is going by and my children are getting ignored because I'm too busy going crazy calling texting. I finally make contact with him we talk and talk and talk and over the course of time agreed to reconcile and I will give up everything in California and put my kids in the car and drive to Tennessee to reconcile our family and so I did I gave up everything but the clothes that fit in the car and long story short on that we came to Tennessee just before I left California and just after I gave up everything of ours I learned that he had a girlfriend here and so I just drowned in that crazy uncontrollable crazy b**** face I lost my mind I lost sight and track of everything else but we still had to come out here so skipping over a bunch of Juicy stuff to get here here we came I sent my son first because he had to get signed up and start high school it was his first year of high school and we were waiting for text me to come to be able to afford to get her unbeknownst to me when my son got here at 14 years old instead of his father trying to help him just like his mother wasn't and he'd been cutting hardly my son stayed in a motel with his father and some girl and at that time and laughed my son didn't even know that those things existed my son did not know people did those things to each other he had no clue so he sucked deeper into that Cesspool of no one cares about me I don't matter so for the 3 months he was in Tennessee before his sister and I he never spoke to me once what was he going to say he wouldn't answer the phone to me you would not talk to me and that's when I lost him that was my baby and he has never really spoken to me since other than to tell me I should off myself. So we came to Tennessee and he was horribly horribly worse to me and I just could never understand why he was begging me to come here and then she has treating me like absolute garbage dirt at the same time it never made any sense to me and it drove me crazier and I could not figure out what was wrong with me what is wrong with me what am I doing it all became about me me and I lost my children's love more more more and more and the connection with them got further and further so now the only thing that's ever mattered to me I am completely out of touch with at this point in it and I don't even realize it I don't even realize it. So we got together we broke up we got together we broke up we got together we broke up when I learned that he was now advertising on Craigslist to sleep with men and I'm not lying about this not one but this is embellished if anything this isn't even the half of it I have no reason to b******* I wait a minute so even before that once we were here he left me for this chick and run off to City 2 with her while me and the kids were here in Tennessee and after 6 months of it not working I bought him a bus ticket to come back here because we're both parents right we're both parents and at this point I've been with this human being for 18 years and I don't know anything different anyway my daughter and I had been living in motels because I lost my home when he left for City 2 my son had already moved out from the age of 17 because he said he couldn't put up with her b******* anymore and I didn't blame him so he comes back he doesn't get a job I don't have enough money to afford the motels anymore we send my daughter to my mother-in-law's because she's about to start high school in a few days and we have to buy a tent and go to sleep in the woods until he procures a job and helps me save money to get into a place now . So now I'm living in a two-man tent in the middle of the Woods 2400 Mi away from home where I don't have anybody except for this person that hates me that I hate he saves the money and leaves me in the tent where I have been homeless now over 2 years my children hate me they won't speak to me it's all my fault that I'm a loser homeless person and Drug them across the country so all of that being said. My cousin Name it was the one who diddled my middle grew up to be some sort of Representative in Utah I don't know what his title is he married a woman that had three daughters and all I could think this whole time was I know he did it to them too and how much it disgusts me that this city in Utah has an elected official who is a child predator and a child molester how disgusting it is that people don't see people for what they are or who they are and the first time that I saw him on Facebook about 5 years into my marriage which I was married in 2004 and I contacted him and one of the first things I said was something to the effect of what he had done and his only response was oh now that's where we're going to start are you kidding me. I made an attempt one time and called the the newspaper there and ask them if they'd be interested in a story about their elected official but then when they got back to me i chickened out and never talked to them right now I want to contact his wife and let her know what she's been with this whole time because it makes me sick that he's just like nothing ever happened and there was nothing wrong with it. The good news is I'm not traumatized sexually or you know it didn't make me a w**** or a s*** it didn't make me not want sex it didn't make me gay it didn't make me not gay it didn't make me anything it didn't as disgusting and disturbing as it is to me my favorite way to have sex is the same way that he used to touch me which is bizarre but I'm pretty normal sexually it doesn't plague me it didn't change me as a person it didn't affect my life entirely and completely like some people it doesn't Define me it's never defined me as far as I'm concerned it's something that happens to everyone and when I raised my children it wasn't is it going to happen to them but when is it going to happen and who is it going to be so I guess I saw this site because I was looking up things to try to slyly jab him in the side like a thorn and involve myself in a couple of Facebook conversations he was having with other political members where they were arguing back and forth about Elon Musk doing that Hitler sign and how stupid they were I wanted to tell them because they're so focused on something that doesn't even matter in life that they don't even realize that they're talking to a sex offender child predator child molester but I wanted to do it in them most professional way so I started researching and asking questions on the internet and this is where I ended up somehow. I told the story hundreds of times it doesn't bother me it doesn't make me sad it doesn't make me anything except for disgusted I don't want or anything I dont want people to feel sorry for me or anything like that I just wanted to share my story because the first three that I read each of those stories were a piece of my total story if you added them all up when I was younger .I used to want to write a book because people say oh yeah my mom was an alcoholic or oh yeah my family was into drugs or oh my family was abusive or my family was neglectful I lived a piece of all of those things throughout my growing up all of them some people only experience one or two of those Lifestyles and I dabbled in a little bit of it all and I thought I could write a book where each chapter was dedicated to one section like that and then no matter who picked up the book and read it they would see that they weren't the only ones that there was someone out there that shared what they were going through or went through and they're not crazy and they're not bad and they're not alone so that's why I just puked out all the story which from what I can recall is about 300 times longer than any of the other ones I read sorry for that I hope I at least kept you entertained I could have made the story way more intense and detailed but I've already taken up too much of your time. I'm just curious should I tell her should I ruin her existence and tell her what she's been living with this whole time so she could at least ask her three daughters who are probably grown women at this point what he did to them should I tell his constituents you think that's going too far I mean it was decades ago. But considering the position that he's in in his community I am firmly against a child predator and molester rapist having the ability to be in control of deciding anything for anyone else and in their community I don't even think he's in office anymore I just think that people should know the type of person that they let have control then at the same time then the same thing happened with our president I mean basically basically nobody cared they still elected him so maybe I just want to matter to someone just matter enough for someone to tell you how you know it f*** that guy . The only other thing I got for you is aside from losing my family unit and the only thing that mattered to me my children the reason that I woke up every morning I don't have any other family members everyone's dead except for my molester cousins two of them the Name and the girl and I never had any brothers or sisters or anyone else so I'm all alone out here and it sucks 3,000 miles away from home haven't had a friend in the world for about 5 years now it's crazy I'm glad you could meet me I'm sorry I wasted so much of everyone's time really all I ask is don't you dare even suggest to yourself inside your own head that any of this is b******* it's just my life that's all and it's just some of it.

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